Musicians Behind the Scenes: Violinist Eliot Heaton

Where were you born? I was born and raised in Geneva, New York, a small city in the Finger Lakes region.
What is your most treasured possession? It’s definitely my violin, although it feels more like a buddy than a possession. We have been through a huge number of failures and successes together, and we spend long hours together every day shut in a room trying to figure out our way through great pieces of music.
Tell us about your instrument. I play a violin made by Joseph Curtin, an outstanding luthier who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It has a big, warm open sound and is beautiful to look at, and I believe that I am the first person to own it.
What’s in your instrument case? There’s the violin, two bows, rosin, nail clippers, a few different mutes, a granola bar, and behind the bows I have a quotation from Moby Dick that my violin teacher gave me when I graduated from college. 
What piece of music never fails to move you? When I really need a boost in inspiration or emotional investment in music, I put on Christian Ferras playing the slow movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. It works every time!
What do you love most about performing? I like the feeling that we are all having this experience at exactly the same time. All of the ears in the audience and the different voices in the orchestra come together in the same moment to create the music that the composer describes in the score, and being a part of that makes me feel connected to a large group of people in a really positive and unique way.
Do you play any other instruments? My hometown did not have a strings program so I grew up playing the trombone in the school band.
What are you reading right now? I’m just finishing the last book in Narratives of Empire by Gore Vidal [The Golden Age]. I’ve been on those for a while and am open to suggestions of what to start next.
What do you like to do in your spare time? My wife and I have two cats who give us endless entertainment. I also play a lot of tennis and have been very happy to discover that Philly has such a robust tennis scene.
What advice would you give to aspiring young musicians? Feed your musical imagination by listening to as many great performances and recordings as you can find. You can only play as well as what your ear can imagine, so give it good material to work with!

Photo by P.D. Rearick