Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road Ensemble Members Team Up with Maestro Long Yu on Youth Music Culture Guangdong
Yo-Yo Ma and maestro Long Yu founded Youth Music Culture Guangdong to help coach young musicians in chamber music and orchestral settings.
April 2017
Violin and Bow Makers Discuss How to Balance Tradition, Creativity & Experimentation
By Heather K. Scott Amati, del Gesù, F.X. Tourte, Stradivari. There are few other occupations wherein professionals wake up every day faced with inspiration—and competition—from colleagues who lived 300 years before. Welcome to the world of a contemporary violin or…
Buying a Contemporary Instrument
Other than commissioning a violin yourself, there are three other venues where you might find your modern masterpiece By Cristina Schreil Looking for a new stringed instrument—specifically, a contemporary one? You’re in luck. “If you look at the past 20,…
Discovering the System of Design Used to Create a Scroll Is a Complex Errand
By James N. McKean Riddle me this: What is the only part of the violin that serves absolutely no function at all—and yet, without it, the instrument can lose up to 25 percent of its value? Believe it or not,…
Advertisement
American Masters Series: Composer David Del Tredici Celebrates 80 Years
By Thomas May The tradition of the composer-performer underlies some of the cornerstones of the repertoire. Think of Vivaldi the violinist. Mozart the keyboard phenomenon. Mahler the conductor—his instrument being the orchestra itself. But sometimes it’s actually the distance between…
Smack Down! Lee England Jr. Connects with the Crowd
By Bob Doerschuk Quincy Jones is his mentor. Michael Jordan signed him up as a brand ambassador—the only violinist to receive that benediction, at least so far. He’s performed in NBA halftime shows, onstage with Stevie Wonder, and on TV…
How to Talk to Your Violin Maker
By Samuel Zygmuntowicz It is fun to sell a violin, but less exciting if it just sits in its case. Soloist Leila Josefowicz had bought a violin of mine long ago, but it was seldom used. Her primary instrument was a…
The Seasons of Gidon Kremer: In the Case of This Formidable Violin Superstar, One Learns to Expect the Unexpected
By Inge Kjemtrup Of all the world-renowned violinists born in the decade after World War II—an exclusive club that includes Pinchas Zukerman, Pierre Amoyal, and Kyung Wha Chung—Gidon Kremer has taken the least- expected path to lasting fame. Today he…