Violinist returns to TSO with romantic, mystical Sibelius

It's not hard to be convinced that violinist Elena Urioste is truly excited to return to Tucson this weekend.

"I will be playing the Sibelius (Violin) Concerto, which is one of the most beloved concerti in the violin repertoire," she says and her voice rises with the kind of glee you get when you tell a kid you're going to Disneyland. "I'm so excited."

Her solo turn with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra on Friday and Sundays, Nov. 13 and 15, will be her third Tucson appearance. She debuted with the TSO in 2013 performing the Barber Violin Concerto and was here in early 2012 with the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.

The Sibelius has been a regular staple in Urioste's repertoire, but the 29-year-old winner of the prestigious Sphinx Competition said she put it on the shelf for a few years until she played it in October.

“Often I find that the trajectory goes something like this: You pick up a piece that you learned, you studied extensively as a student, and things actually feel sort of familiar. You remember the patterns and which are the trouble places. And everything feels sort of familiar and then you hit sort of a plateau where you realize that everything feels just a bit more out of reach than you’d like it to," she said of picking up the Sibelius after the long absence.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

"And then you keep working and the hope is it becomes more second nature after you’ve put in many, many hours of slow, careful practice. But there generally always is a dip in the feeling of accessibility to these tricky passages. But when I go back to a piece and relearn it for a concert, I give it ideally a couple months," she said.

Urioste described the Sibelius as "intensely romantic and at times even mystical."

"It’s a real warhorse. It’s extremely technically difficult for the solo violin, but everything about the piece sort of works in tandem," she said in a phone interview last week. "It really feels like a symphony where the violin occasionally steps into the spotlight. But it really is a symphonic, lush, heavily and beautifully orchestrated work."

In addition to this weekend's performances, Urioste is set to play the Sibelius in a recital in the spring.