Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

String Theory

Great instrumental soloists concertize with considerable in-born talent, but education and hard work also play their part. Case in point: Violinist-violist Helena Baillie, who recently graduated from Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and made her New York debut earlier this year. The Strad magazine described her Big Apple performance as a “combination of brilliance and poignance.” The London native has studied with the first violinists of the Emerson, Vermeer, Juilliard and Tokyo quartets, and her recitals have aired on American Public Radio’s “Performance Today.” No stranger to the Middlebury stage, Baillie is an alumna of the college’s French language school. Accompanied by Boston Philharmonic pianist (and accomplished novelist) Janice Weber, she offers Paganini’s “La Campanella” and transcriptions from the Prokofiev ballet Romeo and Juliet, among other works.