Grammy-winning Lexington violinist debuts new work at Opera House

Update: The concert, scheduled for Saturday, has been canceled due to the weather. It will be rescheduled for later this year.

Timing. Timing. Timing. For Zach Brock, it all comes down to timing — the timing of events, the timing for collaborators, the timing for a composition and, yes, the timing within a composition.

As 2026 enters month two, an array of remarkable career events will be unfolding almost simultaneously. The trick for the Grammy-winning, Lexington-born and now Lexington returnee violinist, is to make sure there is time for it all.

This weekend marks the most immediate undertaking — an Opera House concert that will present the world premiere of “What Remains,” a new work for violin and orchestra that teams Brock with the Lexington Chamber Orchestra.

Next week, though, he will be off to Spain and the beginning of an extensive year of touring with the genre-jumping instrumental army known as Snarky Puppy. The 20-plus member collective is responsible for sending the violinist around the globe and giving him Grammy status.

If that wasn’t enough, the week before these mammoth projects commence, Brock and the full Snarky Puppy roster wound up on the cover of Down Beat, the much-respected jazz-and-more magazine that has been in publication since 1934.

“That was nicely serendipitous,” Brock said of the Down Beat cover honor. “I had no idea that was coming. Somebody who has a subscription to Down Beat emailed me about that. That was a bit of good luck.”

The most present and personal project on Brock’s timing agenda this winter will be “What Remains,” a work that came together quickly because, well, it had to.

After playing “Almost Never Was,” a Lexington-inspired original composition that has long been part of his performance repertoire, as part of a fundraiser for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington last August, the idea of a larger orchestrated work quickly took root.

“This whole thing is just so wild,” Brock said. “We were trying to figure out a way for me to do something with the Chamber Music Festival this past summer. It turned out that I was going to be out on the road with Snarky Puppy on a really long tour at exactly the time they were going to be holding the festival. That distressed me because I really love the festival and everyone involved with it. I think the world of that festival.

“Fortunately, we figured out a way to do a fundraiser. I played with a trio over at The Apiary — just bass, guitar and violin. I played my Kentucky song, ‘Almost Never Was.’ I’ve been playing that forever, it feels like. I just feel connected to that song, so I’m happy to play it anywhere. Then Cacey Nardolillo (executive director for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington) came up to me after the show and asked if I had ever arranged that tune for orchestra. That conversation started the wheels turning.”

Of course, a few days after the benefit, Brock was on the road again — in South America, no less — with Snarky Puppy. Once back in Lexington, though, plans turned to orchestrating “Almost Never Was.” The tune was to become one of two themes (another Brock original, “Triple Dutch,” provided the other) along with newly composed bridges and a cadenza that would eventually become the larger scale “What Remains.”

Though educated extensively in classical music and familiar with the ways of working jazz musicians after living in New York, Brock wasn’t satisfied with some of the orchestrations he was coming up with. Again, timing entered the picture.

Snarky Puppy’s new album, released late last year, was titled “Somni.” It was the ensemble’s second recording project with the Metropole Orkest , a jazz/pop orchestra from The Netherlands whose collaborative client list includes Herbie Hancock, Brian Eno, Todd Rundgren and many others.

Time proved to be on Brock’s side as German arranger/conductor Jochen Neuffer , who works extensively with the Metropole Orkest and was prominent in orchestrating sessions for “Somni,” was able to help out.

“It just so happened that Jochen had time to work with me on orchestrations for my piece, so I sent him what I had, which included an intro. I had been inspired by one of the string arrangements that Vince Mendoza had done for Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” (a revised, orchestrated version that appears on her 2000 album “Both Sides Now.”) I was going for that sort of a vibe because Central Kentucky just has that feel. I wanted to evoke that feeling also about music from my childhood — in the classical world, composers like Vaughan Williams and those sort of English pastorale sounds. I had the shape of the piece and how I wanted it to go, but I wanted to get it into the hands of a master orchestrator. And that’s what happened.”

The premiere concert for “What Remains” serves as Brock’s highest profile performance since relocating back to Lexington in 2023 following extended time in the New York/New Jersey area. The reasons for coming home were personal, as well as professional.

“This is probably the wisest choice I could have made,” Brock said. “It’s been better for my family. My kids are going to Community Montessori School, where I went as a kid. That was a huge thing. Coming back and being around my parents also was a big reason.

“It’s maybe still worthwhile for a person who is at the very beginning of their career and just starting to develop their idea of what they’re doing to maybe go to a place like New York — if you’re still searching, if you’re still trying to find out what it is or trying to find your peer group and the people you want to make music with, I would always encourage anyone to do that.

“But I should also say this: Having been in New York and the surrounding area for so long, I had found my niche in what was keeping me going artistically. Now this may be hard for some people to imagine or understand, but local gigs in cities like Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati pay more than local gigs in New York. Most gigs in New York are all capped at a lower rate than pretty much any small city around the country. People wouldn’t believe what you’re actually making when you’re playing a lot of these gigs.

“I’m realizing more clearly now than ever that the thing I really want to be putting all my heart and soul and energy into, if I’m not getting to play with my friends in Snarky Puppy or maybe another cool project, is making records and creating music. I just feel it’s definitely what I’m supposed to do. All of this is really hitting me like a wave because in coming back, I have more breathing room. I’m lucky enough to go out on the tours yet also play music with great musicians here in Lexington, of which there are many. I’ve really been having a great time doing that and then going off and doing some road gigs and just having more resources to create.

“And then this opportunity came up. Nobody from the New Jersey Symphony or the New York Chamber Orchestra was going to come to one of my gigs and be like, ‘You should play that piece with us.’ That just wasn’t going to happen. But that is what is happening here in Lexington.”

“What Remains” with Zach Brock and the Lexington Chamber Orchestra

When: Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short

Tickets: $15.75-$52.50 through ticketmaster.com

This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 4:55 AM.