Ciaccona The Bass of Time DVD Releases on Crier Records

"I'm going to tell you a story. This story takes place far away, across continents and over centuries. This story includes many people and their stories. ... Ultimately, what is a chaconne? It's part dance, part dirge, part song, and part sorrow. It is a thought at its most personal and at its most public."

This is not the beginning of a novel, but a part of American violinist Robyn Bollinger's multi-media DVD, "CIACCONA The Bass of Time," a project which she will also tour this spring to four cities.

Recorded at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Massachusetts, CIACCONA offers works spanning three centuries by four composers: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber's Passacaglia; Johann Sebastian Bach's Ciaccona from Partita No. 2 in d minor; Bela Bartok's Tempo di Ciaccona from Sonata for Solo Violin; and Luciano Berio's Sequenza VIII. Incorporating multi-media historical presentations and live personal narratives with musical performance, CIACCONA tells the story of one of music's most ancient compositional ideas - the development of a simple repeating bass line - through the lens of solo violin repertoire.

The DVD, companion to Ms. Bollinger's debut solo CD of the same title released this past November 2017 (also on Crier Records) precedes the beginning of a four-city tour this spring of the program. Both the tour and the DVD are produced with generous support from the prestigious Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund, of which Ms. Bollinger became a recipient in spring 2016, joining a list of artists that includes dancer Misty Copeland, actor Andre Holland, and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard.

The spring 2018 multi-media concert tour includes performances at the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Atlanta's Emory University, National Sawdust in New York, and Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with additional dates to be announced.