Metal Lullabies

Rachel Barton Pine won her first major international violin competition in 1992 at the age of 17, becoming the youngest person and first American to ever win the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition in Leipzig. She's since toured with a number of the world's great orchestras, recorded with a baroque group called Trio Settecento, and performed at nearly ever major classical music festival.

She just released a new album, entitled Violin Lullabies, which reached number one on the Amazon Bestselling Classical list on the day of its release.

I'm quite certain a readership as refined and erudite as ours already knew all of this. I'm sure most of you already bought her new record. But I'd be willing to bet that very few of you were aware of Ms. Pine's alter-ego and the breadth of her musical interests.

The same woman who records as part of the Jupiter Chamber Players is also one of the keys to the sound of Earthen Grave, about whom no less an authority than HellrideMusic.com said, "If the doom gods are with us, this band will stay around and continue to produce the kind of unique, powerful and thoughtful music contained on Dismal Times." I don't always listen to doom/thrash, but when I do, I prefer mine heavy on the metal violin, as in the recording below for Blood Drunk, the first single from the band's self-titled 2011 release. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.





In a radio appearance on The Bob Edwards Show, Pine spoke at length about the similarities between doom/thrash and classical, and how her passion for the former informs and expands her ability to connect with audiences of the latter. I don't know a thing about either genre, but hers is a cool story. Rock/chamber on, Rachel Barton Pine.