Renowned violinists Jennifer Koh and her distinguished mentor Jaime Laredo illuminate captivating connections between composers across the centuries, in Two x Four, an album of four double-violin concertos, performed with the Curtis 20/21 Ensemble conducted by Vinay Parameswaran. The compositional touchstone is J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043, an innovative work that introduced new ways for two solo violins to converse with each other and with orchestra. Koh and Laredo leap from the Baroque to the late 20th-century for Philip Glass’s attractive, hypnotically undulating Echorus on the theme of compassion. Two new works commissioned expressly for the project receive world premiere recordings. Anna Clyne’s impressionistic Prince of Clouds is “a winner . . . . This is music one can listen to again and again and find new things to appreciate each time” (Chicago Tribune). David Ludwig’s evocative Seasons Lost, a contemporary counterpart to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, is “full of beautiful ideas contrasting with playful/menacing Vivaldian gestures” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Produced by multiple Grammy Award winner Judith Sherman, Two x Four mirrors the performers’ groundbreaking concert program of the same name, which they recently toured across the U.S. Time Out New York calls the project “intrepid violinist Jennifer Koh’s latest programming brainstorm.” “‘Two x Four’ Equals Sublime,” proclaimed Philadelphia’s LocalArtsLive. Record buyers are already aware of Koh’s keen instincts for connecting Bach with later composers through her Cedille album Bach and Beyond Part 1, named one of the best recordings of 2012 by the New York Times

Koh’s tour schedule for the first half of 2014 includes, in chronological order, Tokyo; Milwaukee, Wis.; Cincinnati, Ohio; New York (Miller Theater and Carnegie Hall); Düsseldorf, Germany; Aspen, Colo.; Metz, France; Berlin, Germany; Lahti, Finland; Santa Fe, NM; Los Angeles (a Two x Four concert).