By Jonathan Blumhofer

Curtis Stewart transforms two dozen American songs into inventive, virtuosic studies for solo violin.

According to Pablo Picasso, there is no abstract art. “You must always start with something,” the Spanish master offered. “Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”

Curtis Stewart, the New York City-based composer, violinist, and educator, basically put that thesis to work in his 24 American Caprices, which is out now from the Bright Shiny Things label. Using two dozen American songs drawn from various pop genres, jazz, religious music, and patriotic music as his launching pad, his set proves as fascinating for the originality of its concept as it is impressive in execution.

Not that things are exactly straightforward: each of the twenty-four sections is described as “inspired by” its source material, and that inspiration is sometimes more esoteric than not. The rapid-fire arpeggios in Stewart’s reworking of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” for instance, suggest Vivaldi loosed on the 1960s. “Oye cómo va” is similarly stripped to its essence; to hear its chorus in this new context is to experience something quite familiar in a fresh way.

Stewart’s caprice after Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” on the other hand, with its powerful refrains and foot stomps, sticks a bit closer to the original. So does his take on Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” which comes out here with a bit more textural and dynamic variety than anticipated.

In fact, Stewart’s ability to home in on little motivic and gestural ideas and develop them to the full is one of the Caprices’ great takeaways. The amount of mileage the composer gets out of the four pitches of “Taps” is a masterclass in economy and invention. So is the ecstatic sense of space he explores in his caprice on Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.”

Throughout, Stewart’s musical thoughtfulness and knowledge of his instrument shine. The rich keyboard progressions of Oscar Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom,” for example, are transferred quite effectively into the world of the violin. James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” takes its title almost literally, with the soloist called upon to recite lines from the song’s lyric.

Taken together, Stewart’s Caprices certainly stand in good stead alongside other pillars of the repertoire, namely Paganini’s epic set, which also consists of twenty-four caprices. If that one is, by a hair, a bit more of a compendium of bravura violin techniques, the present work hardly stints on pyrotechnics—and, besides, it seems to be aiming for more substantive expressive goals.

Stewart is the primary soloist on the recording and, as a violinist, he’s an exceptional advocate for what he’s preaching as a composer. His playing is versatile and electrifying, both in reflective caprices such as “Isn’t She Lovely” and more extroverted ones based on David Bowie’s “Modern Love” and Janet Jackson’s “Doesn’t Really Matter.”

He also generously shares half the album with a dozen other violinists, ranging from student-aged to established professionals. It says something of the excellence of the playing here that it takes some effort to tell one apart from the other. Still, perhaps the most impressive contribution comes from Max Brown, whose rhapsodic rendition of the Caprices’ longest installment, after “Amazing Grace,” evinces a musicality and maturity far beyond what might be expected from a fourteen-year-old.

Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.