For someone who’s been ahead of her time for years, it seems the world might be catching up to Leila Josefowicz.

The American-Canadian violinist is internationally acclaimed for performing contemporary music. She has collaborated with some of today’s top composers, including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Mackey, Thomas Adès and John Adams, whose work she has long championed.

Shortly before embarking on a mid-October tour in Europe, Josefowicz, 47, talked with us from her Westchester County, N.Y.,  home about her unique career path, her family, changes in the classical music realm and her upcoming performances next weekend with the San Diego Symphony at the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center.

Trained at Los Angeles’ Colburn School and the prestigious Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia, Josefowicz began her career playing traditional works. But even as a student, an organic musical transition was taking place.

“I was gravitating towards the newer and unexpected, a form of repertoire that kind of freed me,” she said. “Works that made me feel like I could do more of what I felt like in the moment, so I could be spontaneous and bring some of myself to the music in a different way. That became extremely attractive to me.”

Josefowicz counts herself lucky that before seriously working with composers, she’d already established herself with 10 years of performing standard repertoire.

“It wasn’t like: ‘Who is this violinist who wants to premiere new works?’” she explained. “It was like: ‘OK, it’s Leila. We know who that is — interesting choices she’s making these days!’”

Next weekend’s Jacobs Masterworks concerts here will feature Josefowicz as the soloist on Adès’ violin concerto, “Concentric Paths.” The symphony will also play John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra) and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World.”

The pieces were written in 2005, 1985 and 1893, respectively.

Now considered one of the leading exponents of new music, Josefowicz is pleased to see many of the world’s prestigious orchestras more open to mixing the old with the new.

“I think it’s wonderful that there are premieres happening all the time now,” she said. “If not on every program, many programs. That wasn’t the case before.

“I think audiences are getting more used to the idea of sitting and listening to something that they’re not so familiar with. Many are listening in an adventurous way. This is the kind of listening that’s so important to keep this art form going forward.”

‘For the joy of it’

Josefowicz was a child wonder on the violin. When her family was living in L.A., she made an appearance at the age of 10 on a national television tribute to the famous entertainer Bob Hope. Later, from her family’s home base in Philadelphia — as a teenager — she performed with the orchestras of Houston, Chicago, Montreal, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

Her first album was released in 1995, and she has recorded more than 20 since. One critic hailed her as “a daring, probing, thinking, dancing, spectacularly virtuosic soloist.”

Because Josefowicz performs in so many places, she delights in playing with orchestras in unfamiliar cities like the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, which is a stop on her European tour.

“It’s always exciting when you’re in a country for the very first time,” she said. “It’s getting less and less often that this happens with me.”

Josefowicz juggles her professional life with raising two sons: Leo, 10, and Rex, 13. Her eldest son, Lukas, is 24 years old. The family lives in Ardley, N.Y., 30 minutes from Manhattan, for the space and good schools. Josefowicz’s mother is “definitely part of the scene here and helps out a lot.”

Lukas, an actor, recently graduated from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon University, while nature-loving Rex fishes and goes on hikes. Leo has taken up the violin.

“Leo actually begged me to start the violin,” Josefowicz recalled. “I wasn’t wanting him to necessarily go down that road, but he’s doing it for the joy of it, not to build a career out of it. He’s really enjoying it. What more could I ask for? He has a great teacher who keeps things low key and fun.

“I try, of course, to keep things low-key and fun, but it’s just different when you’re the mom.”

‘A celestial kind of sound’

Adès’ “Concentric Paths,” the composition Josefowicz will play here with the symphony, is one she’s intimately connected to. She started performing “Paths” shortly after it was written and considers it part of the backbone of her career.

In September, she recorded this concerto with the Minnesota Orchestra and its conductor, Thomas Søndergård. It’s expected to be released next year.

“It’s special because I’ve played the piece for decades now, so I’ve had a lot of experience with it,” Josefowicz said. “That’s the way to lay something down like that. The longer you’ve lived with a work, the more it’s part of you.

“I’m very excited to bring it to people in San Diego because I believe in it so much. The thing about the piece that grabbed me is the incredible sounds he has created.”

She happily elaborated on the allure of “Concentric Paths.”

“The first movement is like being up in the stars,” Josefowicz said. “And there are these gigantic waves that come towards you and away from you; a celestial kind of sound…

“It’s one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever heard in music. Some of it sounds a little bit like older music, almost like Baroque music. And then at different moments, it sounds completely contemporary. Tom has this way of bringing the old and the new together in a unique way.”

Adès is well known to local classical-music aficionados. He served as artist in residence at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest in both 2023 and 2024.

“Tom is a genius to be able to create these sound worlds,” Josefowicz exclaimed. “There’s absolutely no doubt why he’s become a total star of the contemporary music world.”

The concerts next weekend will be conducted by Australian-Swiss conductor Elena Schwarz, who also specializes in contemporary music. It will be the first time she and the violinist have performed together.

To Josefowicz, Schwarz — with baton-in-hand — is symbolic of another significant change in orchestral music.

“There was a time in the 1990s — and before that, of course — when it was rare to see a woman on the podium,” the violinist said. “And now, it’s completely changed. It’s wonderful! It’s a huge, huge shift.”

San Diego Symphony — A New World Odyssey: Adams, Adès, Dvořák

When: 7.30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Nov. 17

Where: Jacobs Music Center, 750 B St., downtown

Tickets: $39-$120

Phone: (619) 235-0804

Online: sandiegosymphony.org