First String An Accomplished Violinist While Still In High School, Jason Moody Appears In Benefit At The Met

Jason Moody knows the twists and turns in every mountain trail within miles of his Sandpoint home. He also knows the intricacies of playing classical violin and country fiddle.

A high school senior, Moody can pace himself through a long-distance race with his school’s running team and through the difficulties of Bach’s Chaconne or a Mozart concerto.

Moody will be the featured performer at The Met on Sunday in a scholarship benefit concert for students at Holy Names Music Center. Moody will play Mozart’s Concerto in A major with a quintet of Holy Names faculty — violinists Tracy Dunlop and Tana Bachman, violist Claire Keeble, cellist Cheryl Carney and bassist Eugene Jablonsky.

Mozart’s original orchestration for the concerto has been arranged for string quartet by Karen Walthinsen, second violinist of the Spokane String Quartet.

Other Holy Names faculty on Sunday’s program are percussionist Paul Raymond, pianist Linda Siverts and clarinetist Eugene Mondie, playing music by George Hamilton Green and Peter Schickele.

Moody has grown up in a musical family, with a mother who plays the piano and a father who sings. He began his violin studies when he was 5 with Carolyn Hatch, whose Fiddle Hatchery in Sandpoint (and later in Creston, B.C.) has produced a whole school of young fiddlers who also play classical violin.

For the past seven years, the 18-year-old honors student has commuted twice a week to Spokane, where he studies with Spokane Symphony concertmaster Kelly Farris and is himself concertmaster of the Spokane Youth Symphony.

Verne Windham, conductor of the Youth Symphony, says of Moody: “The thing that continually amazes me about Jason is the complete ease with which he can take care of himself, whether it’s in the backwoods or in music. He is someone who is exactly what he seems to be; there’s no pretense there.”

Moody had worked with Windham at this summer’s Sandpoint Festival outreach program for Bonner County fifth-graders. This season Moody will perform the first movement of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto on the Youth Symphony’s Nov. 7 concert.

Windham’s enthusiasm is seconded by Moody’s violin teacher. “He plays with real feeling,” Farris said when his protege performed with the Spokane Symphony. “And people feel the communication of that expressiveness.”

At Farris’ invitation, Moody played Bach’s notoriously difficult Chaconne for solo violin on a Spokane String Quartet program last season.

Moody has already achieved national recognition, performing on Garrison Kiellor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and Public Radio’s “From the Top.” He made his debut with the Spokane Symphony under the baton of Gunther Schuller at the 1998 Sandpoint Festival.

In 1998, Moody was selected for the prestigious Interlochen Academy in Michigan, where he studied with Russian violinist Julia Bushkova. This summer, he was invited to play in the National Symphony’s three-week summer program for strings in Washington, D.C., taking conducting lessons as well.

Sunday’s program will open with performances by Holy Names Talent Grant scholarship winners: pianists Jonathan Kuo and Zach Stewart, violinist Anna Kimball and soprano Anna Maloney in music by Villa Lobos, Seitz, Carissimi and Debussy.

ON STAGE Benefit concert The Holy Names Music Center Benefit Concert, Sunday, 6 p.m. at The Met. Tickets: $12; students, $7; family of four or more, $30; patron, $30 (includes special seating and dessert); available at the door or by calling 326-9516.