By Diana Skinner: There will be drumrolls at Grant Park tonight during the famous moments in Haydns Symphony No. 103. And there will most likely be additional fanfare heralding the heroic entrance of Rachel Barton Pine as violin soloist. Replacing ailing solo percussionist She-e Wu, Ms. Pine will perform Bruchs Violin Concerto No. 1 on one days notice.
![Rachel Barton Pine]()
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine.
Ms. Pine is becoming quite the step-in. When Midori was indisposed last July, Ms. Pine stepped in to perform Prokofievs Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony on just three-and-a-half hours notice. And a few months earlier, she stepped in for violinist Baiba Skride in Detroit, performing Mozarts Violin Concerto No. 1.
Perhaps that is why Ms. Pine wisely used time during the pandemic to brush up on 24 separate concertos during a project she dubbed #24in24: Concertos From the Inside. In a weekly streaming series, she performed 24 different violin concertos, live and unaccompanied.
It appears, however, the Bruch is never far from Ms. Pines fingers, nor her heart. She learned the concerto at age 8, played the final movement with the Chicago Symphony at age 11, and performed the full work in Grant Park in 2016. She went on to record the piece with Andrew Litton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was released in 2018 and dedicated to the memory of Sir Neville Marriner, the conductor originally scheduled to make the recording.
Miss Pine will have one short day to relax after her Bruch performance before she returns to Grant Park on Friday and Saturday nights for her previously-scheduled premiere performances of Billy Childs' Violin Concerto No. 2.
Drumroll, please!

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine.