Bright Shiny Things Releases Ad Tendo, the Debut Album From Acclaimed Violinist Simone Porter

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS RELEASES AD TENDO, THE DEBUT ALBUM FROM ACCLAIMED VIOLINIST SIMONE PORTER

Includes world premiere of  Drishti by Reena Esmail alongside works  by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Andrew Norman, Hildegard von Bingen/ Olivia Marckx, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

NEW YORK, NY–On February 14, 2025, Bright Shiny Things releases ad tendo [BSTC-0217], a collection of solo violin pieces marking the recording debut of violinist Simone Porter, whose “silken-toned virtuosity puts her right up there with the finest interpreters of her generation” (Chicago Classical Review). Porter’s inventively curated program is themed around a quote from philosopher Simone Weil: “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer,” and is anchored by the world premiere recording of Reena Esmail’s Drishti ??????, commissioned on behalf of Porter by Coretet. The album also includes 21st-century works by Andrew Norman and Esa-Pekka Salonen; Biber’s Passacaglia in G minor, which was one of the first major works for solo violin; and cellist Olivia Marckx’s Improvisation on O virtus Sapientiae, based on a chant by Hildegard von Bingen. ad tendo is available for pre-order here for Hi-rez WAV,  CD, and Limited Edition Vinyl. 

“ad tendo is inspired by philosopher Simone Weil’s insight that ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer... Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ This idea resonates so deeply with a feeling that I seek out and cherish, in which an experience of total absorption offers a kind of deliverance. Weil’s words electrified my thoughts about what the focus of practice and performance could unlock in a culture where human attention is treated like a commodity.”

The title of Reena Esmail’s Drishti ?????? means "focused gaze," which in yoga refers to a fixed point one stares at to find balance and grounding in the midst of movement. Comprising ten miniatures, the work uses the pitch “e” as its figurative “focused gaze,” incorporates raags, and otherwise blends Hindustani and Western classical inspirations. 

Porter was invited by Esa-Pekka Salonen to perform his solo violin chaconne Lachen verlernt (“Laughing Unlearnt”) in 2018 on the New York Philharmonic’s “Foreign Bodies” program, a multi-sensory celebration of Salonen’s work as composer and conductor. The title is taken from a song in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire titled “Prayer to Pierrot” in which the narrator entreats the sad clown Pierrot to help her reclaim her laughter, which she feels she has lost. For Porter, this work embodies the idea that attention paid to art or an artist can help restore a stagnant or overlooked characteristic. 

Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard von Bingen provides the source for Olivia Marckx’s Improvisation on O virtus Sapientiae, which is based on Hildegard’s 12th-century Antiphon for Divine Wisdom. Another kind of “divine wisdom” at the intersection of natural beauty and religious ritual is embodied in Andrew Norman’s Sabina, his arrangement of a movement from his string trio titled The Companion Guide to Rome, a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music. The movement was written after the composer watched a sunrise during morning mass in Rome’s Santa Sabina Basilica. He writes, “As I watched the light grow and change that morning, I was struck by both its enveloping, golden warmth and the delicacy and complexity of its effects.”

Porter thinks of the album’s closing work, Biber’s Passacaglia in G minor, subtitled “Guardian Angel,” as a sort of companion piece to Sabina, where the mantra-like repetition of the bassline cultivates the same kind of focused attention as the light effects that inspired Norman.

TRACK LIST:

Reena Esmail
Drishti (???? ???? )
1 I. Shimmering
2 II. Tense, volatile
3 III. Searching
4 IV. Diaphanous
5 V. Swiftly
6 VI. Yearning
7 VII. Brewing
8 VIII. Wild, erratic
9 IX. Luminous
10 X. Reaching

Esa-Pekka Salonen
11 Lachen Verlernt

Hildegard von Bingen/Olivia Marckx
12 Improvisation on O Virtus Sapientiae

Andrew Norman
13 Sabina

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
14 Passacaglia in G Minor, C. 105 "Guardian Angel"

ABOUT THE ARTIST: 

Violinist Simone Porter has been recognized as an emerging artist of impassioned energy, interpretive integrity, and vibrant communication. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle and Pittsburgh Symphonies and with a number of renowned conductors, including Stéphane Denève, Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicholas McGegan, Ludovic Morlot, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Louis Langrée and David Danzmayr. Simone made her professional solo debut at age 10 with the Seattle Symphony and her international debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London at age 13. In March 2015, Simone was named a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Raised in Seattle, Washington, Simone studied at the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and currently lives in New York City. Simone Porter performs on a 1740 Carlo Bergonzi violin made in Cremona Italy on generous loan from The Master’s University, Santa Clarita, California.