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Violinist Robert McDuffie, an Aspen Music Festival favorite, returns to play Harris Hall

Violinist Robert McDuffie will take the stage at Harris Hall in Aspen on Wednesday evening.
Photo courtesy of Aspen Music Festival and School
Violinist Robert McDuffie will take the stage at Harris Hall in Aspen on Wednesday evening.

Violinist Robert McDuffie might have taken a different career path.

When he was growing up in Macon, Georgia, he made the varsity basketball team. But he had begun learning the violin at age 6 at the urging of his musician mother.

One could say he became a varsity violinist instead, studying with the revered pedagogue Dorothy Delay and following her out to Aspen every summer.

McDuffie will give a Harris Hall recital with pianist Derek Wang Wednesday evening.

Featured on the program are the two rhapsodies for violin and piano by Bartók; the concert for violin, piano and string quartet by Chausson; and the violin sonata by Philip Glass.

Classical music reporter Chris Mohr has loved classical music since he was twelve. “And I owe it all to radio,” Chris explains. “I grew up in a farm town east of Cleveland. One day I turned on the local classical radio station. They were playing Vivaldi, and it was like the gates of heaven opened up to me!" Chris is also a composer, and is working on a 53-note-to-the-octave oratorio, "Melodies of the Shoreless Sea." This is his ninth summer working for Aspen Public Radio.