“When Tessa Lark studied at the New England Conservatory, the violinist made friends at Berklee College of Music,” writes Jed Gottlieb in Sunday’s (10/17) Boston Herald. “Now a frequent guest with some of the country’s leading classical orchestras, Lark spent a good deal of time in Boston exploring improvised Americana music with pals one campus over…. Lark would often end a classical program with a rootsy tune…. Some considered it a novelty. ‘But it’s not a party trick for me, it’s the way I live my life in music,’ she said… ‘I want to continue to play my Beethoven concertos, my Tchaikovsky concertos, my Franck sonatas, but also explore American music and its relevance to classical music today’ … Lark … plays both ‘violin’ and ‘fiddle’—sometimes switching between the two in the middle of a flourish of notes on the [Michael Torke] concerto ‘Sky.’ [Lark] grew up in rural Kentucky. Her father is a bluegrass banjo player.… ‘Classical music is extremely sophisticated and folk music has a beautiful tradition of welcoming anybody at any level, …’ she added. ‘There was this battle between so-called high and low art. There’s now a welcoming and celebrating of these two traditions.’ ”
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