Violinist Hilary Hahn plays Bach at Tractor Tavern - after a Benaroya gig

By Kate Levin

By 1:30 a.m. Sunday, the crowd at Ballard's Tractor Tavern had mostly cleared out, but for a few dedicated Hilary Hahn fans. Although her flight to Los Angeles was due to leave in a matter of hours - she was playing L.A.'s Disney Hall Sunday - the violinist stood, instrument slung over her shoulders, chatting with Tractor visitors.

The 27 year-old Grammy Award-winner had just completed a rare guest performance alongside folk artist Tom Brosseau.

As she talked with guests after the show, one person seemed anxious. Amy Jones, Hahn's publicist, was clearly not excited by the prospect of the violinist going sleepless in Seattle, as was becoming increasingly likely given that her flight was to leave at 7 a.m. Jones did her best to shoo Hahn out the door, to little effect.

Just the night before Hahn had been at the center of a parallel musical universe, bringing down the house at Benaroya Hall with her performance of works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Tartini, among others. In fact, the audience was so appreciative that Hahn was given multiple standing ovations, including one before the intermission, and she ended the night with two encores.

For Seattle resident and writer, Rod Parke, seeing her perform was a joy. "She makes this hall just ring," he explained during the intermission. And Benaroya Hall Front of House Staff member Shayne Laughter thought she was "on fire."

But on Saturday, Hahn swapped her floor length skirt and formal top for jeans and a casual jacket. The audience too, seemed of a different world. Instead of pleated pants, collared shirts and loafers, guests attended the show in jeans, scuffed shoes and t-shirts. Still, alongside the typical twenty and thirty-something Tractor clientele were a number of middle-aged, salt and pepper haired guests.

Seattle resident Michael Boer was one such Tractor patron. According to Boer, "It was very touching to be able to see her perform in a small room completely acoustically." He was brought to the show by a friend who heard an in studio appearance with Hahn and Brosseau on Seattle's alternative radio station, KEXP. "I was drug along by a friend who said I'd love it and I did," he said.

Another attendee, Michel Adeney, came all the way from Edmonds to see Hahn perform. Although Adeney has heard her play before, he says he "was really interested to see her in this kind of setting."

During the show, Hahn played two pieces behind Brosseau who was the night's headliner, but she was also given the stage to perform works by Bach and Schubert. The crowd remained silent throughout the music, the only interruption; the sound of a lone beer bottle that tumbled to the floor partway through Schubert.

It is surprising for a concert violinist to play Mozart and Beethoven one night in the grand Benaroya Hall, where audience members pay a lot for their tickets and sit quietly in plush chairs, and then to perform beneath the hanging cowboy boots and lighting made of tractor tires of the tavern in Ballard, where the audience spends hours on their feet and chats between tunes. But Hahn says that she is energized by the challenge of different musical genres.

Concert work is highly structured and fully rehearsed as opposed to playing at an event like the one Saturday night, where she had the opportunity to improvise some of what she played. Hahn explains that it's, "a very different experience from doing pieces I've worked on for a long time and it's helpful to me as a musician."

Hahn's eclectic taste in music is matched by her outside interests which include welding and long-distance running. In fact, she intends to run the New York marathon in November, but admits that it is "wildly outrageous" for someone to prepare for a marathon while on the road.

Clearly Hahn has a penchant for learning, as she loves to draw and paint, and also speaks German, French and Japanese, although she is strongest in German. "I've always tried to take as many classes as possible when I have the chance," she says.

Hahn began playing the violin just before her fourth birthday and was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at the age of 10. She made her orchestra debut just a year and a half later with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Although she is now 27, and is considered one of the world's foremost concert violinists, the petite artist could pass for 16. And perhaps because of her youth, Hahn is committed to communicating classical music to younger audiences. Her schedule is packed with appearances worldwide, but when she has time, Hahn tries to make herself available to younger artists, and says she enjoys going into schools and working with children as a way of giving back. As she explains, "when I was younger there were people who helped me out."

The program at the Tractor Saturday night included indie-rock singer Johanna Kunin as well as singer-songwriter Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands. Both were well received but when Brosseau took the stage crowd members rushed to the front to get a better look at the artist. Hahn took her place a short time later as a bleary eyed audience looked on. The crowd, who had chatted through earlier performances, fell into a hushed silence and erupted in the most enthusiastic applause of the night at the close of Hahn's first piece. It's unlikely that any of them had heard Bach played on the stage of the Tractor Tavern before.

Kate Levin is a Seattle freelance writer who my be contacted at bnteditor@robinsonnews.com