Lauded as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin,” Tracy Silverman’s groundbreaking work with the 6-string electric violin defies musical boundaries. Silverman joins John Floridis in the Musicians' Spotlight this week.
”Tracy has developed his own unique style of violin playing--a marvel of expressiveness, the product of his having digested everything from Stefan Grapelli to the Indian saranghi to bluegrass, Robert Johnson, and Terry Riley. Hearing Tracy Silverman play his six-string electric violin immediately reminded me not only of the great jazz and rock performers and Pakistani qawwali singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (where the real music is in the slide between the notes), but it also made me think of the prose style of Jack Kerouac, so deeply influenced by his listening to the rhythms and melodic arcs of improvised jazz."
—Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winning composer John Adams
(Broadcast: "Musicians' Spotlight," 5/26/16 and 8/25/16. Listen weekly on on the radio Thursdays, 7:30 p.m., or via podcast.)