In Wednesday’s (12/27) New York Times, Alexandra Levine writes about violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, one of the newspaper’s reader-nominated “citizens who have made a difference in the city over the last 12 months….. Once a month she visits local shelters to perform the scores of Beethoven, Bach and other classical masters for homeless New Yorkers. Ms. Hall-Tompkins earned acclaim last year as the fiddler in the Broadway revival of ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ But more than a decade ago, well before she could have imagined landing the coveted violin soloist gig, she was playing chamber music in soup kitchens…. [In 2005] Ms. Hall-Tompkins founded Music Kitchen—Food for the Soul [chamber music recitals for] homeless New Yorkers…. Ms. Hall-Tompkins … has since inspired nearly 200 chamber musicians, including Emanuel Ax, to join her for Music Kitchen performances…. At one recent concert in an immigrant educational center in Brooklyn, Ms. Hall-Tompkins led a singalong for the famous ‘Fiddler’ number ‘Sunrise, Sunset.’ … ‘People from completely different, non-Western cultures really connected with the timelessness of those words—it just transcended time, place, culture, everything,’ she said.”
Posted January 2, 2018
