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| Ari Umans knows plenty of the flashy stuff--we've heard him rip at Johnson's before--but when asked to play something on his 2003 David Polstein violin, the soft-spoken Belmont High senior honors student, competitive chess and tennis player, and Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra concertmaster for an upcoming performance of Mahler's 5th who's already tackled the Tchaikovsky concerto, chose the sweet "Sicilienne" by Paradis from his favorite violinist Nathan Milstein's Vignettes album, a record Ari's dad grew up with. "We got the cd and I listened to it all the time....I think I've tried to play pretty much all of the pieces on it!" Ari's moving performance with his gorgeous tone and warm, generous vibrato displayed his priorities in his music and in an instrument. When shopping for a violin he "looked for a deeper sound....I played a lot of violins that had a sort of thin quality.... This (the Polstein) was the first one that really caught my attention." While trying other contemporary as well as older fiddles, he searched for a special quality--something "more rich than bright or flashy. " Polstein's instruments are known for their sumptuous, singing tone and have won awards for the local maker at Violin Society of America competitions, including a silver medal for tone in 2002. Ari says one of the pleasures of his violin is that he is still getting to know it and grow into it. As it too grows and changes, he experiments with different strings, currently using Evah Pirazzis with a light gauge G. He searched a long time for a bow that would draw the deepest, fullest tone from the violin, at last falling in love with a gold-mounted Georges Tepho. Ari has come a long way from the 1/16 size rental violin he began on with teacher Helene Kamen, with whom he has studied with all of the thirteen years he's been playing, challenged thoroughly by her technical expertise and musical knowledge, and he has played with the Boston Youthy Symphony Orchestra for ten years. He says he won't pursue music as a career, hoping to attend MIT next year to study Mechanical Engineering. But this gifted young violinist, who feels so deeply for music and violin playing, plans to continue lessons and to play in orchestral and chamber groups. "I get really excited about certain pieces....It used to be more that I have to practice and now it's that I get to practice....I will play chamber music my whole life." |
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