“When I play all 24 Caprices, each one becomes
a scene for me.”
Kevin Zhu · Interview for Musik in Dresden, 2023
Kevin Zhu has recorded Paganini’s complete 24 Caprices, Op. 1. Alongside it he has filmed the Caprices in locations around the world — a visual expression of his own interpretation.
The recording is mastered and sequenced: 73 minutes and 25 seconds, a complete cycle on a single disc. Every Caprice stands on its own as a short-form track — ideally suited to streaming, radio and broadcast programming. The films sit alongside them, shot across three continents, each Caprice given its own place, light and atmosphere.
The visual concept is Zhu’s own, drawn organically from his imagination through years of close study of Paganini’s music and life. In interviews, he has described these pieces as scenes and landscapes since 2023, before a single frame was shot.
The result is a release with something most solo-violin records do not have: a body of finished, distributable visual work, made by the artist, with the rights already clear.
Four preview clips are presented here.
Click any one to play it here on the page. The descriptions are the artist’s own.
Scan a code or follow the link to watch. The descriptions are the artist’s own.
We open the 24 Caprices with fireworks and electric energy, set against the backdrop of Kevin’s home, the city that never sleeps.
Watch Caprice No. 1
Man converses with his own shadow as he embarks on an inner search for truth. This is the heart and soul of the set of 24.
Watch Caprice No. 4
Musical laughter adds to the unique joy of a sunset on the rolling hills of Tuscany.
Watch Caprice No. 7
Paganini’s extraordinary imagination brings us to a violinist’s nightmare — a gallery of devilish deconstructions and sickly sweet charms.
Watch Caprice No. 10Each Caprice was filmed on its own location with a locally engaged crew, giving every film the texture of the place it was made. The full series is available for viewing on request.
“When I play all 24 Caprices, each one becomes a scene for me. The first is so explosive and wild — extreme, virtuosic, incredibly exciting… like New Year’s fireworks… Every Caprice becomes an entirely new inner landscape.” Kevin Zhu · Interview for Musik in Dresden · June 2023
Zhu said this in a long interview published after he performed the complete Caprices twice on consecutive nights at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele in Germany. In the same conversation he described playing the cycle as walking through an art exhibition: “you see one picture, and another, and another … and every picture reveals a new landscape.”
This was two years before these films were created. The first Caprice he imagined as fireworks; the film opens on fireworks over Manhattan. He described the cycle as a gallery of pictures; the tenth is filmed as a gallery of deconstructed violins.
This is what separates the project from a travelogue. The films are the documented interpretation of an artist who has lived inside this cycle for a decade, and who won the Paganini Competition’s special prize for best performance of a Paganini Caprice before he was eighteen.
From Paganini’s hometown of Genoa and the gondolas of Venice to a sunset over the Tuscan hills; from fireworks breaking above Central Park and a Manhattan workshop of rare violins lying in pieces to the mountains of Liechtenstein, the grounds of an English royal estate and a German castle on the Elbe; from a new concert hall on the old Silk Road outside Beijing to a painter’s studio in Paris — each Caprice was given a place to live in.
“Absolute virtuosity, almost blinding in its incredible purity.”
“Purity and robustness of tone… allied with matchless intonation.”
“Awesome technical command and maturity.”
“Twice this week he scaled the Mount Everest of violin literature — Paganini’s 24 Caprices.”
The 55th Paganini Competition awarded Zhu First Prize, together with the special prize for the best performance of a Paganini Caprice — and an invitation to give a recital on Paganini’s own violin, the 1743 ‘Il Cannone’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, which he played at the Palazzo Tursi in Genoa — all as the youngest finalist, at the age of seventeen.
First Prize at the Paganini Competition has previously gone to Salvatore Accardo, Gidon Kremer, Leonidas Kavakos, Isabelle Faust and Ilya Gringolts — a lineage that has produced several of the reference recordings of this exact repertoire.
| Work | Niccolò Paganini — 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1 (complete) |
|---|---|
| Artist | Kevin Zhu, violin |
| Status | Mastered · delivery-ready |
| Total running time | 73′25″ — complete cycle, single disc |
| Track structure | Twenty-four self-contained short-form tracks — well suited to streaming, radio programming and playlisting |
| Format | 24-bit / 96 kHz stereo PCM masters — any delivery format available |
| Instrument | c.1722 ‘Lord Wandsworth’ Antonio Stradivari, on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium |
| Producer & engineer | Jakob Händel — Grammy-nominated, ECHO Klassik winner. Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Decca, Warner Classics; Wiener Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Santa Cecilia. |
| Visual series | A film for each Caprice, shot on location internationally |
| Film production | Grittani Creative · Arpeggio Films · One31 Studio · KULMAG AG · Pilvax Films |
A partner would be taking on a finished project: the audio is mastered and sequenced, and the visual series is shot. What remains is release strategy, artwork and marketing — the parts a label does best.
Genoa is the point of maximum resonance: the city of Paganini, the competition Zhu won, and the home of the violin he was invited to play. A timely release would land with a built-in story and a live touring platform already carrying this repertoire across Europe, Asia and North America.
The recording is finished and the films are made. What we are looking for is the right partner and the right shape — and we would love to build that with you.
To hear the full recording, view the complete film series, or open a conversation: