Violin Maker and Novelist Michael Kearns on His Influences, His Shop, and His Knack for Following His Nose Through Life - Strings Stories

This story was written by Megan Westberg for the September-October 2024 issue of Strings magazine and is read by the author.
I get the sense that violinist Ray Chen is still searching for the right answer—the perfect, succinct media-ready response—to a particular question. Funny thing is, it isn’t a question I’ve asked him. In fact, outside the introductory pleasantries, I haven’t asked him anything at all. He’s calling from the airport in Chicago as he waits for a connecting flight to Los Angeles (delayed) and has thus far wryly chuckled at my suggestion that he may be headed for a break after his recent stint as guest artist at Interlochen Arts Camp (not so much—but he did get a fleeting “pocket of time” to leap into a Michigan lake post-concert the night before). Before I launch into a litany of questions about his upcoming release, Player 1; his practice platform, Tonic; and the general comings and goings of the artist known as Ray Chen, he thinks it may be worth mentioning why it is he routinely ventures outside the box, as it were, in terms of the activities that typically occupy a concert violinist. So he poses the first question himself.

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