Vardi Art

THE MUSIC OF
EMANUEL VARDI

“Vardi dominated the scene as man and artist…Vardi represents the American School at its best and his recital was colossal…”      
— Strad Magazine 

Long known as the world’s leading viola soloist, Emanuel Vardi is acclaimed as a performer, pedagogue and champion of his instrument.  In 1942, Mr. Vardi received the prestigious “Recitalist of the Year” award from the New York music critics for the best New York recital following his Town Hall debut. His many concerts and recitals have taken him throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Far East.  As a member of the unparalleled NBC Symphony Orchestra, and protégé of the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini, he has soloed many times with that famed orchestra, and was given the extraordinary distinction of being asked to perform a solo recital at the White House for Franklin D. Roosevelt during WWII.  Mr. Vardi is one of one two violist in the world to have ever given a solo recital in Carnegie Hall.

During his career, Emanuel Vardi has played countless solo recitals to great critical acclaim in the major concert halls of the world including New York’s Alice Tully, Carnegie Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall.  In 1985, Mr. Vardi was featured in a full length article in Strad Magazine, and in 2003 he was honored with a lengthy interview in The American Viola Society Journal, with his painting ‘Homage to a Great Violist’ appearing on the front cover.  During his career, he frequently appeared live in concert radio stations around the globe including the BBC in London, CBC in Canada, and WQXR and WNCN in New York City.

The only person to have ever recorded all 24 Paganini Caprices on the viola, Mr. Vardi has made numerous recordings which can be heard on such labels as MGM, Kapp, Musical Heritage Society, Audio Fidelity, Vox, Columbia, and RCA.  Recently, he has recorded for Dorian, Chandos, and Collins Records.  He has served as full professor of viola and violin at Temple University in Philadelphia, Manhattan School of Music in NYC, and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.  As a renowned pedagogue, he has helped to produce some of the finest soloists, chamber musicians, and orchestral players throughout the world.
Emanuel Vardi’s versatility as a musician spills over into conducting and composing, with frequent forays into the jazz field as well.  He has worked with some of the top names in this genre and has produced recordings for such greats as Lionel Hampton, Al Hirt, and Louis Armstrong. 

Following a severe accident in 1993, Mr. Vardi, an avid painter throughout his music career, retired from the concert stage and decided to devote the rest of his life to art. A natural outgrowth of his love of music and his experience as an intimate colleague gives him a knowledge and insight into the world of the musician, and his work has become sought after by collectors, musicians, and music lovers alike.

Emanuel Vardi’s art career developed parallel to his musical career as he began lessons in art while simultaneously studying the violin and piano as a seven year old in New York City.  At the age of 14, while a student at the prestigious Walden School in New York, he won first prize in sculpture at Macy’s Children’s Art Show.  Subsequently, Mr. Vardi studied life drawing with Morris Kantor at the Art Students League for two years, and in 1950 he studied for two years at the Academia de Belle Arte in Florence, Italy.  His instructors were renowned landscape and portrait artist Giovanni Colachicci and Italy’s most famous portrait artist Primo Conte.  While in Italy, Emanuel Vardi Won the prestigious first prize at the Rappalo International Art Competition on his abstract of a violin which now hangs at the Bordeghera Art Museum.  In 1956 his painting White on White, Composition No. 3 was shown in a group show in New York’s City Center and was picked by the New York Times as best in show.  He has had many New York shows since that time, and has sold well over 100 works during his career.  Since the early 1970’s, Emanuel Vardi has concentrated on painting his musicians, beginning with a flute player that was commissioned by a famous jazz musician.  These paintings soon became very popular amongst musicians, music lovers, and private collectors all over the world.  Because of his parallel involvement in music and art, he brings a unique style and perspective to his musical subjects; that of a musician, intimate colleague, and painter.  His last show in New York City was in 1993, at which the critic for the magazine Art Speak wrote:  “I hear music when I look at Emanuel Vardi’s paintings.”  Mr. Vardi has shown at countless art galleries throughout his long career, and is currently represented by Reflection Fine Art in Dallas, Texas, The Casarietti Gallery in Breckenridge, CO, and Artisans on Taylor in Port Townsend, WA.

 In 2001, Mr. Vardi was commissioned to paint a large oil of a violist for the Brigham Young University Library’s PIVA wing in Provo, Utah.  Word of his beautiful commissions soon spread to the Dallas Symphony, where in 2003 he was commissioned to paint a large canvas for their annual Symphony Gala to benefit the Dallas Symphony.

Mr. Vardi now makes his home in Port Townsend, WA where he continues to be very active in both music and art.

DOWNLOAD
BREAKING BOUNDARIES:
An Interview with Emanuel Vardi

by Kathryn Steely
Journal of American Viola Society,
Vol. 19 #1 (11 pages)

REVIEWS

VARDI MAKES DEBUT
Another N.B.C. Symphony player, the violist Emanuel Vardi, made his recital debut at the Town Hall last night..
On the program were Brahms sonata, Op. 120, No.2, a first concert of Allan Shulman’s Theme and Variations, an American premiere of Alessandro Rolla’s E-flat major sonata (with the piano part written by Alfred Mann( and a miscellany of transcriptions.
Mr. Vardi’s technique reduced intricate passages to mere child’s play.  His tone was smooth and velvety and shaded to fine dynamic nuance.  Interpretatively he showed a grasp of the factors making for compelling solo flight.

The Shulman novelty, unfolding fine song and adroit thematic change, proved a serviceable new item in the repertory.  Mr. Shulman, a ‘cellist, is a colleague of Mr. Vardi in the N.B.C. orchestra.
—NEW YORK DAILY TELEGRAPH January, 1942

KNOWING THE SCORE 
Tully Potter reports on the mingling of masterclass and competition at the Isle of Man Congress.
He arrived late, but Emanuel Vardi dominated the scene-which this time incorporated the International Viola Congress - as man and artist.
Now sixty-seven, Vardi represents the Russian/American school at its best and his recital was colossal, taking in the Haydn/Piatigorsky Divertimento (beautifully bowed in the faster movements), the Bax Sonata, the Vaughan Williams Suite and Stravinsky’s Elegie (all the more moving for the player’s complete lack of mannerisms, the difficult double stops perfectly placed).  The first half ended with the Bach Chaconne, like a vast Gothic cathedral; and the second with his own paraphrase on the Blue Danube!
—THE STRAD 1988

STRAD AWAKENING
A sleeping giant was roused at the Royal Academy of Music on April 28, when Emanuel Vardi played the Academy’s 1696 Strad viola, which had lain undisturbed in its case for years. 
With the college’s principal Sir David Lumsden at the harpsichord, the veteran American violist gave a splendid performance of Bach’s G minor Sonata for viola d gamba; it was good to hear the trio sonata nature of the piece brought out, with both keyboard parts so well delineated. 
Vardi then took up his usual (or rather, unusual) viola, made in 1982 by the Japanese-American Luthier Hiroshi Iizuka and shaped like a viol, its sloping shoulders giving easier access for the long stretches required in modern viola music.  With the fiery pianist Kathron Sturrock, he played Sir Arthur Bliss’s daunting Vila Sonata magnificently, although the acoustic of the Academy’s Concert Room was not very helpful to the piano.  This was the latest of a number of performances the duo have given of the piece, and Lady Bliss was in the audience to applaud it.
The previous week, Vardi and Sturrock had taped the sonata for Chandos (the violist’s second recording of it); that very evening, Vardi and Lumsden recorded all three Bach gamba sonatas for another label.
—TULLY POTTER, THE STRAD  APRIL,1989

FROM THE ISLE OF MAN   
A Report on Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and workshop, Aug 27-Sept 3, 1988
. . . At the heart of the week’s events was a deeply memorable series of recitals.  The artists were drawn from widely differing backgrounds and generations.  But what seemed to matter most was the individuality of each performer.
Emanuel Vardi’s playing combines clear, strong musical lines with flexibility and spontaneity. 
His program ranged from Bach to the world premiere of a sonata by Manny Albam in the jazz idiom.  Other items included the rarely heard Bliss Sonata and a generous offering of Paganini Caprices. 
A great believer in widening the viola repertoire, Vardi took the opportunity to plead for

Greater originality in program-planning and a liberal use of arrangements to make viola recitals more appealing to music-lovers in general.
—MICHAEL FREYHAN, STRINGS MAGAZINE Win 1989

OTHER REVIEWS

“The richly gifted artist had devised an interesting program of works which were originally written for viola with the exception of Bach and Falla.  Mr. Vardi displayed his sound musicianship and highly developed technique and firm grasp of style of the Bach sonata at the start of the evening."  
—Noel Strauss, New York Times

“A Master Violist”
—Los Angeles Times

“Emanuel Vardi’s playing combines clear, strong musical lines with flexibility and spontaneity.  His program ranged from Bach to the world premiere of a sonata by Manny Albam in the jazz idiom.
Other items included the rarely heard Bliss Sonata and a generous offering of Paganini Caprices.  A great believer in widening the viola repertoire, Vardi took the opportunity to plead for great originality in program-planning and a liberal use of arrangements to make viola recitals more appealing to music-lovers in general.”
—Michael Freyhan, Strings Magazine

“Vardi, a violist of marvelous security and musicianship, has been celebrating his instrument for considerably more than 40 years….Personality doesn’t intrude…Even Vardi’s concluding high-wire act, his own Paraphrase on the “Blue Danube” (a bit sub-Godowsky), displayed refined agility rather than diabolical glitter.  His own adaptation of the Kochanski version of Falla’s evergreen “popular Spanish songs” showed how closely the viola can approach vocal expression, so natural that the octave displacements sounded like extraneous titivation…and better still was the Brahms E-flat Sonata, where Vardi’s unpretentious directness (with some well placed portamento) was a pleasure and a illuminating lesson.  Best of all was the great Bach Chacconne…and Vardi unfolded it with magisterial ease, a seasoned grasp of its proportions and a deceptive smoothness in transitions that only a ripe musician can achieve…”
—David Murray, Financial Times, London

Emanuel Vardi:

Lenore Vardi

For information or inquiries about the Vardi's visual art, private instruction or
scheduling a master class appearance, please contact the the Vardis at:

206/947-9694 or 206/947-9350
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