I first heard violinist James Ehnes in the late ’90s in Indianapolis, when he was soloing with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and I was their (its?) stage manager. I was puttering around the backstage area in the green room/place for musicians to dump their stuff, and he walked around the room for a solid half-hour. Thing was, he was tossing off the most blistering virtuosic phrases and pieces imaginable the entire time. Anyway, here he is in Wieniawski’s Etude-Caprice Op. 18 No. 4.
Disclosure: I did get this from a publicist, but it was the greatest press release I’ve ever received. It read in its entirety:
“Check this out! http://youtube.com/watch?v=xXi5D366n7o.”