Jennifer Koh

Most of us can easily identify Beethoven as an iconic composer. Many know he was pivotal in the transition from baroque and classical to the romantic era.

Violinist Jennifer Koh takes us much deeper into the composer.

“The role of a performing musician is having the composer be part of your DNA, whether they are living or have been dead for 200 years,” said Koh, who will participate in two concerts in the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest next week. “They are the point of discovery.

“Beethoven was not only revolutionary in his musical structure, but also in how he lived his life. He created the mold. Mozart and others of that time were basically servants (of royalty), but Beethoven shifted that. He was independent.”

SummerFest 2017 will present all of Beethoven’s violin sonatas in four separate concerts. While the chamber-music festival has featured some of these sonatas over the years, this is the first time it has presented all 10 in one season.

Koh, often praised for her passionate performances, has played the works of myriad contemporary and legendary composers. But she and her musical partner, pianist Shai Wosner, are particularly well-suited to perform Beethoven’s sonatas. They will play three Wednesday at the University of California San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.

For her “Bridge to Beethoven” project, Koh paired the sonatas with new commissioned works by living composers to explore Beethoven’s impact on her contemporaries.

“Shai and I prepared for two years for the ‘Bridge to Beethoven’ concerts,” she said during a break at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico. “And we’ve been touring with it for two more years. So we feel in sync playing the sonatas.”

On Thursday, Koh and pianist Scott Cuellar will perform Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, Op. 24, in a SummerFest “Encounter.” Hosted by Marcus Overton, the event will take place at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla.

“I’ve played in the Athenaeum space,” said Koh, who last performed at SummerFest in 2011. “I enjoyed rehearsing there. People were coming in and out of the library. They’d roped off where I was practicing, but I felt part of the community. As a performer, I liked the intimacy of the library as well.”

Koh, 40, was born near Chicago to parents who had emigrated from Korea. Her mother was a refugee from the north; her father was from the south. Koh played violin at the Chicago Symphony at age 11. Her belief is that her parents wanted to give her everything they didn’t have growing up. One of her upcoming projects explores the immigrant experience, through the eyes of her family members.

Among the three sonatas Koh and Wosner will play Wednesday night is the “Kreutzer ” Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 47. Koh noted that it was originally called Sonata Mulattica. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove wrote in her book of the same name, Beethoven composed it for his friend George Bridgetower, an acclaimed Afro-European violinist — and later changed the title after the two had a falling out over a woman.

“One can read about that premiere,” Koh said. “Bridgetower improvised and Beethoven said, ‘We must do that again.’ There was no separation between composer and performers. We make distinctions between jazz, pop, improvised and classical music. But in classical European music back then, all these things were a part of a larger whole. It’s helpful to go back and look at that.”

SummerFest 2017: Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas I

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15; 7 p.m. “Prelude” lecture by Nuvi Mehta.

SummerFest 2017: Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas II, featuring Jennifer Koh, violin; Shai Wosner, piano

When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 16; 7 p.m. “Prelude” lecture by Nuvi Mehta.

Summerfest 2017: Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas IV

When: 8 p.m., Friday, Aug. 18; 7 p.m. “Prelude” performance by Ulysses Quartet.

Where: UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla

Tickets: $45-$75

Phone: (858) 459-3728

Online: ljms.org/summerfest-2017

Summerfest Encounter: Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas III featuring Jennifer Koh, violin; hosted by Marcus Overton

When: 12:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 17

Where: Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla.

Tickets: Free

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