Words by Harper Mahood
Devotion is the basis of western classical music, where instruments and voice serve as a conduit for spiritual reflection and worship. Violinist, Simone Porter, puts a modern twist on the theme of devotion through her debut solo album, ad tendo, a play on the Latin word for attention which translates to, “I stretch towards.” For Porter, the album represents total absorption, with works that span centuries and continents culminating in the detailed recording of ad tendo.
Porter made her professional solo debut at age ten with the Seattle Symphony followed by an international debut at age thirteen with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. She has done extensive touring both nationally and internationally and received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2015. The release of ad tendo in February marks a new chapter in the diverse and expansive career of Porter.
Off Shelf: Earlier this year you released your debut solo violin album, ad tendo. How did you know that you were at the right place in your musical journey to release an album?
Simone Porter: The timing of ad tendo was entirely dictated by my relationship with its featured repertoire! The album is essentially an extension of a recital program that I played in various venues 2022-2024. I loved listening to the ways the pieces resonated with one another in live performance, and felt compelled to capture a version of their conversation in a recording. My connection to this repertoire is already different, and my interpretations will – hopefully – continue to shift and deepen, however every album is also the portrait of a specific moment. In addition, the album features the premiere recording of Drishti by Reena Esmail, and we were excited to share this new addition to the solo violin repertoire!
OS: You write that ad tendo was inspired by philosopher Simone Weil’s insight that “absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” What is the significance of this message for you in relation to your music?
SP: The seed of this program was a sort of eureka moment I experienced back in 2019 when I read Gravity and Grace by the philosopher Simone Weil. Weil lived in France in the first half of the 20th century and much of her work contends with a search for spiritual purity. She wrote that “attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer… Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” I found this insight electrifying because it put words to a feeling that I cherished and constantly sought out but had never been able to fully articulate, in which an experience of total absorption acts as a kind of deliverance. I realized that the quality my favorite activities and experiences held in common was the degree of attention that they commanded. Weil’s idea energized me to reconsider what the focus of practice and performance could offer – something purifying, some kind of salvation?
Soon after I encountered Gravity and Grace, I read How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, a book about resisting the modern attention economy. Odell’s work further catalyzed my excitement – Simone Weil’s precept seemed even more vital in the 21st century, the age of brain rot, when every day we interact with platforms that apply the logic of scarcity to human attention and treat our capacity to engage like a commodity. Jenny Odell notes that “if we think about what it means to ‘concentrate’ or ‘pay attention’ at an individual level, it implies alignment, different parts of the mind and even the body acting in concert and oriented toward the same thing.” I started thinking that if attention “implies alignment,” then maybe Weil’s unmixed attention, attention as prayer, is the quest to align with something greater than oneself. I really wanted to immerse myself in that gesture, the reach towards something greater than oneself, and sought out music that I felt inhabited that motion. The album title ad tendo is a play on the Latin root of the word attention, and it means “I stretch towards.” The works on it span centuries and continents, but for each one, attention is both the means and offering by which a person can extend beyond themselves.
OS: Do you believe that philosophy and classical music are inherently intertwined? Why or why not?
SP: Absolutely! Philosophy and music have existed symbiotically through the ages, their gazes are intrinsically kindred. Both ask fundamental questions about who we are, what purpose we serve, how we experience the world. The history of western classical music begins with devotion, and I don’t think it is any coincidence that music is the apex expression of so many distinct spiritual practices. Music is unshackled by verbal precision, it communes directly with feeling. I think philosophy aspires to reach this same world of meaning, but words are a different, in some way thornier and earthier, conveyance. The depths of understanding that philosophers excavate in their journey in turn enrich music. Each implores the other to keep seeking.
OS: You made your professional solo debut at age ten, performing with the Seattle Symphony. Because you had such an early start, was there ever a time that you questioned your path with music?
SP: There have been many times that I’ve interrogated my relationship with music, and the answer has always been the same – it’s the love of my life and all other options pale in comparison. I’m not a proponent of the axiom you often hear in the arts, “if you can even imagine doing anything else, quit.” I think cultivating other interests and developing a robust sense of self not directly related to one’s instrument is essential… however, I anticipate I will continue to choose to center the joy of music-making forever.
OS: Your musical career proves your versatility as an artist. You have performed and toured with symphonies, worked closely with renowned conductors, and now, released solo work. With these experiences in mind, is there an aspect of your career as a violinist that you prefer over others?
SP: I am immensely grateful for a career that allows and encourages such variety! The gift of playing music, or participating in any kind of art, is that you never have to – get to? – stop learning. This endless capacity for discovery and expansion is absolutely my favorite part.
OS: What does it mean to you to be a classical musician?
SP: I’m tempted to say that I want to consider myself just a “musician,” that genres are outdated and limiting, however… obviously, classical music fits into a very established and oftentimes quite rigid structure. I think to play classical music in 2025 is to balance deep respect for history and precedent with curiosity and an appetite for growth and transformation. I love being part of an art form that has such rich, storied lore, and I cherish some of its inherent challenges. The opportunity to be engaged, at length, in a crowd, sometimes in stillness, is benison. To me, it’s an antidote to the whiplash of a newsfeed. ad tendo was in many ways an ode to this aspect of classical music. Spiritual queries have always been, and continue to be, an anchor of classical music. The opportunity to contribute to the question, or really just the chance to notice it, is perhaps the most meaningful part of the job.
OS: At this point, do you have any specific career highlights?
SP: ad tendo certainly counts as one! Learning through and alongside this repertoire has been a source of so much inspiration and joy. Beyond that, I love shiny dates and venues, but I feel most nourished by collaborations that combine trust and spontaneous risk, and those can occur anywhere!
OS: What are your future musical goals and ambitions?
SP: Learning and performing the new music on ad tendo was one of the most generative experiences of my life – I love playing music that isn’t entirely legible to me right away. The process of translating and imbibing an unfamiliar work is absolutely delicious, and I hope to be able to do this in larger settings beyond solo violin.