In this episode of the Classical Post Podcast, concert violinist Alexi Kenney shares his experience of releasing a visual album (Paul Wiancko’s X Suite for Solo Violin) earlier this year that was filmed in wine country at a fabulous estate in Sonoma, California.

The Donum Estate was founded 20 years ago on 190 idyllic acres. Today, 91 of those acres are planted with grapes such as pinot noir and chardonnay. But more interestingly, the grounds are dotted with an incredible sculpture collection of modern art.

The resulting series of videos from this album — that you can watch on YouTube — features Alexi playing amidst this dynamic landscape of Vineyard-bliss and contemporary sculptures.

He commissioned the composer Paul Wiancko to write this work called X Suite for Solo Violin. The visual album pairs the seven movements with seven sculptures at this vineyard. The work originally premiered at London's prestigious Wigmore Hall in 2019. But now this is the recording premiere in multiple formats — the video on YouTube and audio recordings you can find on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

Alexi is one of those people that sees art as "total art", encompassing not just what you hear, but what you see and experience in the physical world. I know I personally value this and want the classical music world to move in this direction. But for now, I want to highlight his viewpoint on just that — creating art music that's not in a vacuum, but inextricably tied to the visual experience.

How is this valuable to you?

Some might find art music esoteric, but I'm here to showcase Alexi's work as something that's approachable just as you would approach a wine pairing at a fine restaurant. To take the analogy further, imagine a summer's night on Nantucket. You've just had dinner with the sun setting over the water. You've had a fine bottle of champagne. And now you're getting ready to leave and have a cigar by the fire, now that the cool breeze is sweeping off the coast.

All of these elements are uniquely beautiful — the food, the view, the champagne, the fire — but if you eliminate one of these, it's still beautiful, but not as complete. That's the best way I can describe this discussion of art we have in this podcast episode.

The total package becomes transcendent, picking us up from the mundane and placing us in a state of elevated consciousness.

I hope you enjoy my chat with Alexi Kenney who The New York Times calls “spellbinding".

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