Janis Sakai
Violin
Joined
March 2018
Profession
Violinist
Education
University of Denver
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Biography
As a violinist, Janis Sakai has performed orchestral, chamber music, and solo works internationally. She has been studying the violin since the age of 5, winning numerous awards in competitions such as the Society of American Musicians, the Walgreens Concerto Competition, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition among others, and she has performed in master classes for Yo-Yo Ma, Ruggerio Ricci, Midori, The Pacifica Quartet, The Tokyo String Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Silk Road Ensemble, and Pinchas Zuckerman.
In addition to performing with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Second Violin, Janis served as Co-Concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago for the past two years. Prior to this, she performed with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra in Japan for three years. Since moving back to the U.S., Janis has performed with the Colorado Symphony, Music of the Baroque, the New World Symphony, and the Madison Symphony Orchestra, among others. Janis holds degrees from the University of Denver and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where her primary teachers were Yumi-Hwang Williams and Detlef Hahn.
Janis Sakai will perform Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto with the Lakeview Orchestra on April 10, 2022. Learn more >>>
We sat down (virtually) with Janis Sakai, Lakeview Orchestra’s Concertmaster and the soloist for our upcoming performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation is below.
What drew you to the violin? What excited you about it?
My mom loves to tell this story. We were at church one day and a string quartet started playing. Apparently I just got up out of my seat and started running toward them screaming! My mom had to chase me down, take me out, and promise me that I could take violin lessons when I was a little older. That’s the story I’ve always heard of how I started. I guess I just loved hearing it! They actually started me on piano first and realized it was a disaster because my piano teacher had a cat, so for the entire 30 minute lesson I was just chasing the cat.
When did you realize you wanted to be a professional musician?
I didn’t realize I wanted to be a professional musician until much later in my life. I went to college with a dual degree program. I had a lot of interests and I wasn’t sure about what I wanted. I was definitely interested in music, but I also loved the idea of arts administration so I pursued a business degree. I didn’t realize until probably about 2 years into my studies that I really loved performing and everything about being a musician full time.
What do you love most about the Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto?
The concerto itself is fascinating, but what I love most about it is the history behind it. Coleridge-Taylor wrote this piece for Maud Powell, who is a hero of mine. They both succeeded in the face of extraordinary prejudices. He against black musicians and she against professional female solo violinists. Their collaboration together was just so perfect because they were both advocates for racial equality, and had a shared passion for violin and music of different cultures. I was doing a lot of research about this piece as I was immersing myself in it. Apparently while they were discussing creating this piece together he developed an idea of writing a violin concerto based on black spiritual themes. When he finished composing it they both hated it, so he threw it out and wrote an entirely new and original work, all the melodies being his own. That’s the concerto you’ll hear next month! Even though this piece was written in 1910 it seems like it was forgotten for quite a while until it was revived for a concert to mark the centenary of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 1980, and coincidentally that’s where I went to school for my masters!
What was your approach to learning this piece?
Even though this isn’t a new piece, it was a new piece to me. I had never heard of it until our conductor, Greg Hughes, told me to check out the piece and asked me to play it with the orchestra! I listened to it and thought it was incredible. What I did to get familiar with this piece was listen to every recording I could get my hands on. As a violinist we’re so used to hearing Sibelius, Dvorak, Bruch, and you know what it sounds like before you even start playing it. With this piece that wasn’t the case for me, it was brand new. In some ways that was really cool because I was working with a clean slate and was able to pull inspiration from prior violinists who have played it before and then make it my own completely.
What are some things the audience can listen for in this piece?
During his lifetime, Coleridge-Taylor was often referred to as the “Black Dvorak” or “African Mahler,” and I think this concerto is a true representation of this. It’s full of rich harmonies, very grand and noble, but also lyrical and virtuosic at times. I truly think concerto would make a worthy substitute for any standard Romantic violin concerto that we have become so accustomed to. With that in mind, I think the listener should keep an ear out for harmonic and melodic resonances of Dvorak American works, especially in the first movement of the concerto. Also, listen for the opening triplet motif because it repeats itself throughout the piece in different ways and I feel like that is an important message that Coleridge-Taylor is trying to emote.