Violinist Augustin Hadelich debuts at Weill Hall with Orpheus Orchestra

Augustin Hadelich, a German-Italian violinist who became a U.S. citizen last fall, spent his youth on his family’s farm in Tuscany, where he worked to make his violin sound “better, sweeter and rounder.”

“To develop the sound yourself, it has a lot to do with the way your hand is shaped and how thick your fingers are,” Hadelich said in a phone interview from his home near Lincoln Center in New York. “Ultimately, we have to find our own sound over many years.”

The effort to sound as lyrical and as voice-like as possible has paid off for the 31-year-old musician, not only with major awards - he won the inaugural Warner Music Prize this fall - but with a unique sound that musicians and critics praise for blending hypnotic beauty with clear communication and natural musicality.

Hadelich will demonstrate his unique sound during a concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall. He will be ?accompanied by the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, a renowned New York ensemble known for its collaborative leadership style. The West Coast tour is a warm-up for a Carnegie Hall concert in early December.

Life has not always been clear sailing for Hadelich, now regarded as one of the most promising violinists of his generation.

When he was 15, he had to stop playing for six months to heal from a tragic fire in his family’s vineyard that badly burned his upper body and face. Fortunately, his left hand was spared, but he endured months of rehabilitation and multiple skin graft operations.

Although doctors told him he would never play again, Hadelich went on to study at Juilliard and won the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis in 2006. Since then, he has performed with every major orchestra in the U.S.

Hadelich, who is making his debut with the Orpheus this weekend, said he’s really looking forward to playing with the chamber orchestra, whose musicians must interpret the score instead of relying on a conductor.

“Sometimes smaller chamber music orchestras do that when they play early music,” Hadelich said. “But they (Orpheus) push much further into the repertoire, playing romantic and contemporary music, too. I find that very exciting.”

The Orpheus will open the concert with Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 5, and close with Schubert’s understated Symphony No. 5. In the heart of the program, Hadelich will solo in two Russian works: a new arrangement for violin and orchestra of the Divertimento from Stravinsky’s ballet, “Le baiser de la fée” (The Fairy’s Kiss), and an old chestnut from Tchaikovsky, the “Valse-Scherzo” in C Major.

In “The Fairy’s Kiss,” a ballet first written in 1928, Stravinsky paid tribute to Tchaikovsky and even borrowed a few themes from Tchaikovsky’s piano music. As a result, the work is a bit more melodic than one would expect.

“He Stravinsky-ized the themes, making them a little off kilter,” Hadelich said. “But he captures the elegance of Tchaikovsky.”

We caught up with Hadelich just as he was starting to rehearse with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Q: What is it like to play with a conductor-less orchestra?

A: There’s actually a lot more rehearsal than you would have with a conductor. In this case, it’s very interesting that you first rehearse with just the leader of each section (the strings and the winds).

It’s very helpful when the people leading each section already have a clear plan. That’s what makes something like this possible. Because playing without a conductor with 30 to 40 people is very different from playing without a conductor with 10 people. But if people are in the Orpheus, they are very attuned to ensemble. They listen to each other in a really attentive way.

Q: How is the new arrangement of the Stravinsky ballet different from the other arrangements of the piece?

A: I’ve been playing the piano and violin version of this piece for many, many years. We asked Dmitry Sitkovetsky to make this arrangement (for violin and orchestra). It’s a violin concerto, but ... the orchestra is very active. Any time the violinist is playing, the orchestra is, too. So it’s very collaborative.

Q: How did you develop your own sound?

A: I had role models for how I wanted to sound on the violin. One of the first ones was Uto Ughi, an Italian violinist, just from his recordings. People talk a lot about instruments. The instrument you play opens many possibilities for you, and you can do more with the sound. But the longer you play on each instrument, the more you sound like yourself again.

Q: You’ve played on two different Stradivarius violins. What was that like?

Each violin has its own character. Eventually, you end up at the sound that sounds like you. It was very difficult to play the (1683 ex-Gingold) Stradivarius.

The Strad violins are very sensitive, the wood is much thinner, and everything you do is overwhelming the instrument. It feels like you are walking on eggshells ... The sound will be louder the less hard you are pushing. It’s counter-intuitive.

I’ve been playing five years on the 1723 Kiesewetter Strad. I’m very much at home on this instrument, and when I put the bow on the string, I know what to expect and I know what’s coming out. I feel incredibly happy with it.

For people in my generation, it’s not possible to buy a Strad any more, regardless of how successful you are and how much money you make. I’m very lucky that there are owners of great instruments who don’t play themselves, who will loan them out. It’s good for the instrument, it supports the player, and the instrument often gets better known as a result. Everybody benefits.

Q: How will the Warner Prize, worth $100,000, affect your career?

A: I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to use the prize money, but an obvious example would be making recordings and videos for YouTube. A lot of these things are very expensive. Basically, the more you can do, the better you do career-wise.

Q: What do you do in your spare time?

I don’t do sports. It would be more video games and puzzles and movies. I’m a big movie buff. When you’re really, really busy, it’s important to take a little break.

It’s also important to have time when you don’t hear anything, and you have silence. That’s a big problem today, because everywhere you go, there’s music. It drives me insane in a restaurant or an elevator or an airport, when there’s music playing. I didn’t agree to hear this. And the worst is classical music. Then I can’t help but listen, and it distracts.

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.