Slug Magazine – Exploring the Human Experience of Music with Madeline Adkins

by Danielle Susi

Concertmaster and principal violinist Madeline Adkins assumed her new post at the Utah Symphony Orchestra in September 2016. Despite having to audition in sweatpants, Adkins seamlessly transitioned from Associate Concertmaster at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra—her home of 16 years—to the mountains of Utah and the stage at Abravanel Hall.

“There was a lot of pressure to play technically well,” she says of learning the violin. “I definitely think that’s different now. You see people crowded around somebody on a sidewalk just going to town. That speaks so much more to the human experience than something that is rigid.”

We discuss the role of the concertmaster, what it means to be a woman in the orchestra world and her passion for innovative concert programs. But please, don’t call her a “concertmistress.”

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