Sarah Charness goes from chamber recitals to fashion runways, hot pink electric violin in hand

Sarah Charness, 29, is a classically-trained violinist who's become a larger-than-life star with her signature pink electric violin — which looks less like a Strad than a Strat. She's seen everywhere from fashion runways to sports stadiums to rock arenas, contributing her high-energy playing in a style that goes wherever it needs to go to excite a crowd.

I recently called Charness at her New York City home to talk about her unusual career, musical gender divides, and the future of classical music.

There's an Onion headline: "No One Sets Out To Be a Smooth Jazz Musician." I feel like the same idea might be applied to you: that no one necessarily sets out to be a go-to electric violinist for stage spectaculars across the nation.

Well, I didn't set out that way, certainly. It just sort of fell into my lap in sort a weird way--or not-so-weird way, however you want to look at it--but I definitely think you're on to something there.

So you grew up in Newton, Mass.

Yes. I was born in San Francisco, actually, and lived there for five years while my dad was completing a fellowship. Then we moved out to Boston.

And you started to learn classical music — apparently via the Suzuki Method.

Yes. Totally Suzuki-trained. It's pretty much the go-to standard method if you're going to play the violin — that's what most people use.

So you were playing violin, you enjoyed it, and then you had an important experience when you were 16. Could you say a little bit more about that?

Yeah! So basically, when I was 16 I went to a chamber music camp, and I was playing classical music all summer, playing chamber music in this cool immersive environment with lots of other kids who were doing similar things. One of the guests they had come to the camp was also a previous camper: his name is Mark Wood, and he is actually the maker of my instrument.

He came and he did this demonstration on all these crazy 80s-rocker-looking instruments and really opened up a lot of people's eyes to what was possible with a string instrument. I think a lot of us really sort of categorized a string instrument as being this purely classical thing, when it really doesn't have to be. Back 15 years ago, really you did not see electric violin: it was not common like it is today, it's much more common today than it ever was. That was a turning point for me, to experience this instrument in a totally different way.

Did you go right up to him and say, I want to learn more about this?

Yeah, pretty much within four seconds I said, "Oh my God, I want one! Can you make me one? I have to have this!" My parents were there that weekend and I dragged them over and said, "You've got to meet this guy! He's got this really cool instrument, and you've got to hear him rock out." He played this cool rendition of "Eleanor Rigby" for us, and it was so amazing.

It was really a turning point for me in terms of understanding what was possible with this instrument. [He] was promoting these instruments, because he makes them from scratch — they're all made from hand. At that point, [electric violin playing] hadn't exploded the way it has today, and he was making these instruments for people on request. If you look him up now, he's got a huge, huge business.

How would you describe the difference between playing an electric violin and an acoustic violin? What can you do with an electric violin, and why would you play an electric violin as opposed to an acoustic violin?

A lot of people who maybe are not so experienced with the violin know a little bit more about the guitar. There are two main types of guitars: there's an acoustic guitar, which you know of as that instrument that's made out of wood, doesn't need to get plugged in, and can make a sound on its own. Same goes with an acoustic violin: that's probably the violin you've seen played in a symphony orchestra. It makes sound on its own; it doesn't need to be plugged in.

Then you have an electric guitar, that does require some sort of outside amplification — otherwise you won't hear the instrument. What's cool about the electric guitar is that you can run all sorts of effects through it: a million different sounds can come out of it, depending on what pedals you put on it.

The electric violin is run through the same equipment: instead of it producing its own sound naturally, it gets plugged in through an amplifier, you can run whatever effects on it you want, and you can actually make it sound just like an electric guitar. You'd be shocked.

So at this point, you're in your late teens, you've started playing an electric violin, you're still playing an acoustic violin, and you go to the University of Michigan to study music performance.

Yes. Pretty much for those four years, the electric violin took a nap. I played it a little bit, but really not much. I was really focusing on becoming as great a player as I could be and really just spending time in the practice room. Practicing a ton, honing my skills — it was really just important for me to become as good a player as I could possibly be, because I didn't really know what was coming to me after college. I had no idea.

At that point, were you still envisioning yourself as having a career as a classical violinist?

You know, I think I went back and forth. The first year, probably yes. Then I had a couple of turning points in college. I went to the Henry Mancini Institute, which was a classical-jazz fusion program out in L.A., and I learned a lot about what string players can do — what was possible with a career out in L.A. I was sort of playing around with going to L.A. and trying to get into the recording scene or trying to do film work.

Then I decided, maybe not — [film is] a really hard industry to break into. It's a dying industry, everything is pretty done electronically now and they barely use live musicians any more. So I kind of knew that I wasn't going to go the straight classical route after that summer, but it took a couple more years of really thinking about what I really wanted to do before I decided, you know what? I'm going to go to New York, I'm going to play this by ear and see what happens.

So you graduated, you moved to New York, and you started applying — you've said — for everything.

Yes. Absolutely everything. I practically worked for free — in fact, I probably did work for free a couple of times, but I just really started to immerse myself in this New York City music scene. There's such a rich culture here of musicians and talent and all sorts of opportunities here that I thought were going to lead me to what I wanted to do — and thus far, for the last seven years, that's really what I've been doing is just getting involved in every opportunity that I can, and it's led to a lot of cool things.

My impression, from having read previous interviews with you, is that your experience with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was a real turning point in your career. Do you feel that way?

I wouldn't say a turning point so much as one very cool experience among many very cool experiences. It's cool for an audience to hear because it's a well-known group, but to me it was another point where I really got to just experience being a musician in the fullest way: what it meant to be on the road, what it meant to really have this crazy schedule where you performed every night in a different city. That was a really cool experience.

Thinking back, was there a moment where you felt, wow, my career is really taking a turn in an exciting direction?

Totally. This question gets asked in different ways, and it gets asked a lot, and the way I normally answer it is that I don't think there was ever one point where I've said, "Wow, things are really happening!" What I think happens is that you set goals for yourself, and set milestones. Once you accomplish a milestone, then you look to the next milestone. For a while, my milestone was, oh my gosh, I want to play [Madison Square] Garden, I want to play an anthem for a game. Then you hit that milestone and you think, okay, I want to play at a really awesome festival — and then you hit that milestone. And now, my next milestone is I really want to get a track signed to a label and put something out in a very real way, not just on my own. Now, actually, I'm in conversations with a label to release a single.

You set these goals, and instead of saying, oh, this was the point — it's not like being a YouTube sensation, where all of a sudden you have a million hits and that was the turning point and you can pinpoint the day it happened. I think it's a much more gradual thing.

What has the reaction of the classical music world been to your career?

To be honest, the classical world has really shifted in an incredible way and become much more accepting of alternative styles of music, because that's what's relevant right now.

Classical music...I'll never put it down, it's so important to me, but it's a dying language. I think more and more, classical musicians are having to resort to playing things that are a bit more contemporary and are embracing these contemporary pieces and contemporary approaches to things in a much more real way because they're realizing, hey, we have to play what people are going to buy tickets to.

More and more, classical players are becoming classical crossover or classical pop, or doing things that are just a little bit more of a mix instead of just straight classical. Even the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony — they play with James Taylor every summer. It's becoming much more fluid instead of just these straight lines.

When I think about classical-popular fusions or crossover, it goes back to the days of the Pops in the mid-20th century and then you had the fusion moment in the 70s...there's been a long tradition of that, and now you have classical musicians collaborating with EDM producers. Do you feel like we're moving towards any kind of a true fusion between classical and popular genres of music, or will there always be this uneasy relationship?

I think you're always going to have classical concerts, you're always going to keep that history alive in some way, because it would be a shame to lose those incredible pieces, that incredible art form — it would be a shame to have that be lost, but I do think the reality is that we are fusing so much more. You have to play what is going to sell tickets, and I think orchestras struggle with this a lot. Chamber groups struggle with it, and whether they like it or not, they have to play what sells.

For example, I just did a chamber music concert. It was a real chamber music series — Hilary Hahn was there, the Kronos Quartet was there, they had some real great groups, and they asked me and a couple friends to come down and play some extreme light classical pop, to the point where even we were like, "Really? You want this in a chamber music festival?" They were like, yes, we really do, we really want something a little lighter. As classical players ourselves, we were pretty surprised that they would want something like that, but they really did, and they were so enthusiastic about it. So I think there will be much more fusion going forward.

Do you still play much of the classical repertoire?

I still play. I absolutely still play, and I make a point to play concerts every year. I just played a concert with a pianist friend of mine; we played Rhapsody in Blue, we did a bunch of the Itzhak Perlman Porgy and Bess pieces. I make a point to play classical concerts so that I don't lose anything. If you don't practice, you're going to lose it, so I really do make a point to do that every year.

What are your favorite pieces in the repertoire?

I think probably solo Bach is my favorite. There's nothing like it. Just so amazing.

You have a pretty flamboyant and glamorous image that you've cultivated. Do you enjoy being more free in that respect than you might have been in the classical world?

I do. I was always a performer at heart; I was a ballet dancer for a long time, so there was a certain costumed aspect to ballet that I always appreciated and enjoyed. I love fashion, I always loved to dress up as a kid. I love clothing — I think it's just such a fun world to be a part of, and there are so many amazing artists in the fashion world. It's always fun to fuse those two art forms [fashion and music] together and see what you come up with.

You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with appropriate femininity. I think it's wonderful. If you have a lot of clothes, wear them!

You told Classical Lite in a recent interview that you like that pink violin you play because it lets you be a girl in rock and roll. It made me think [about the fact] that you're really straddling two genres — classical and rock — that have traditionally been very male-dominated. What are your thoughts about performing, as a woman, between these two genres?

I think there definitely need to be more of us, that's for sure. I was actually a women's studies major at the University of Michigan as well, so I've always [appreciated] the importance of getting into a field that's male-dominated. It's so important to have women in the field.

Even in the EDM world — the electronic dance music world — DJs are, for the most part, well-known DJs are male. There are not a lot of well-known female DJs out there, so it's really important for us girls to really put our foot forward and say, we're here. How can you watch all these guys having such a great time doing this and not want to do it yourself? So I think it's really important, as a woman, to be a part of this world.

Do you think attitudes are changing?

Yeah, I do. I just think it's going to take more well-known women, more of the Madonnas of the world to come forward and really be strong women in this genre.

So Madonna would clearly be a pioneer in pop music as a woman. Do you have any heroines on the classical side — women you look up to as being accomplished in classical music?

There's so many. There's a lot more classical female violinists out there that are doing well than there are in the rock and roll world. Hilary Hahn, Anne-Sophie Mutter...there are quite a bundle of wonderful classical female violinists. Where this starts to fade out is when you get into that rock-and-roll, electronic dance, anything that's a little more gritty doesn't have as many women involved.

In all your years performing with the pink violin in crazy amazing settings, what are some of your most memorable adventures — or experiences that really stand out to you as wow moments?

Playing at the Garden was a wow moment. There are so many...playing on the Steve Harvey show was a blast. Getting to meet him was totally fun. There have been so many wow moments in so many different ways. Playing Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week was also an incredible experience — just to be in those tents with so many amazing designers and artists.

You're bringing violin into settings, from fashion runways to violins, where people are not necessarily used to hearing violin, and the response seems to be positive. How has the reaction been — and do you feel like you've seen people take greater interest in the violin because of your introducing them to it in these settings?

Yes, people have been really receptive. I have a young student who I teach, and she says, "Everyone in my high school is playing the violin now. This is a really cool instrument now." Whereas I know when I was in high school, it definitely was not. It's becoming a bit more mainstream, which is awesome.

What's next for you? You have a single coming out sometime soon.

Sometime very soon. We're actually in negotiations with a label now, so I can't say too much about that, but I'm very excited about it.

It's an EDM collaboration, I gather?

Yes, it's an EDM collaboration with two producers called the Disco Killers. They're in New York, and we got together, collaborated, and came up with this very cool track that fuses very old-time violin playing with very contemporary dance music beats — so it's actually a very cool track, and I'm very excited about it.

What events do you have coming up?

I'm really excited about an after-hours fashion event coming up on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 22. I've never played the Stock Exchange before, so I'm very excited about it. I'll be posting photos on Facebook and Instagram, so feel free to follow me!

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