Oct 26: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents Rachel Barton Pine Performing on Violin and the Museum's Historic Viola d’Amore
Photo of Rachel Barton Pine by Lisa Marie Mazzucco. Press photos available here.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Presents Rachel Barton Pine
Performing on Violin and Viola d’Amore
Sunday, October 26, 2025 at 1:30pm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall
25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Information: gardnermuseum.org/calendar/rachel-barton-pine-10.26.25
“Striking and charismatic . . . she demonstrated a bravura technique and soulful musicianship.” — The New York Times
For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com
BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series, presenting Rachel Barton Pine, described by The Washington Post as "display[ing] a power and confidence that puts her in the top echelon,” on Sunday, October 26 at 1:30pm. Pine will give a very special recital with pianist Matthew Hagle, performing on her own violin and viola d’amore, as well as on the Gardner Museum’s extraordinary 18th century viola d’amore, which she tested at the Museum last year.
The Gardner Museum’s viola d’amore, which was last played in concert in the 1980s, was crafted in the 1770s by Tomaso Eberle in Naples, Italy, and is on display in the Yellow Room. The instrument was given to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1903 by composer Charles Martin Loeffler, who was her close friend and central to music programming at the Museum. Championed by composers as varied as Vivaldi, Haydn, and Bernstein, the viola d’amore developed from roots in Middle Eastern music. The Museum’s instrument has seven bowed strings and additional sympathetic strings, which add a silvery glow to its sound.
On October 26, Rachel Barton Pine will perform selections by Vivaldi, Telemann, and Haydn for viola d’amore, as well as two works composed by Loeffler—his Mescolanza “Olla Podrida” and Norske Land. On violin, she will perform Brahms’s Violin Sonata and Sarasate’s Introduction and Tarantella.
With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Rachel Barton Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music. Her discography consists of over 40 recordings, including 25 for Cedille Records, and her many recital appearances have included Davos, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Marlboro, Ravinia, Salzburg, Bravo! Vail, and Wolf Trap. She performs regularly with world’s foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Vienna Symphony Orchestras.
Pine began playing the viola d’amore in 2007. "Reading about the history of the great violinists of the past, going back to the 1700s, I was struck by the fact that the greatest virtuosos of their era were also known as great players of the viola d'amore as well," she said in an interview with Violinist.com. In 2015, she released a widely praised album, Vivaldi’s Complete Viola d’Amore Concertos, performing on the complex instrument. Classics Today reported, “When played with perfect intonation such as we might expect from Rachel Barton Pine, the result is captivatingly mellow and expressive, even in virtuoso passages.”
A multiinstrumentalist, in addition to the violin and viola d’amore, Rachel Barton Pine also plays Renaissance violin, Baroque violin, the Medieval rebec, electric violin, and more.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fall 2025 Weekend Concert Series is an eleven-concert autumn season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel running from September 13 through November 23, 2025, which features world-class artists in the Museum’s extraordinary Calderwood Hall—a 300-seat “sonic cube” with three levels of balconies designed so that 80% of seats are front row, creating a uniquely intense and intentional listening experience.
George Steel’s programming continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.
Fall 2025 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule
September 13-14: ACRONYM - The Complete Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach
September 21: Junction Trio Plays John Zorn
September 28: Catalyst String Quartet
October 5: Sphinx Virtuosi with Sterling Elliott, cello
October 19: Miranda Cuckson, violin, and Blair McMillen, piano
October 26: Rachel Barton Pine, violin and viola d'amore
November 2: Claire Chase, flutes, with Aisslinn Nosky, violin, Katinka Kleijn, cello, and Alex Peh, piano and harpsichord
This performance is made possible by the Anne Hawley Fund for Programs.
November 9: Clayton Stephenson, piano
This program is performed in memory of Willona Sinclair.
November 16: Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano with Myra Huang, piano
This concert is made possible by the generous support of David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder.
November 23: Michelle Cann, piano
All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm (except ACRONYM, which performs on both Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 pm) in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).
Ticketing Information
Tickets ($20-$85) are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. All concert tickets include Museum admission.
About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $22; Seniors $20; Students $15; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on their birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org
Music at the Gardner is supported by Nora McNeely Hurley / Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Nicie and Jay Panetta, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.