THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED Our lucky winners were: Ana G. of Springfield, VA Jennifer K. of Castroville, TX MacKenzie L. of Weston, MA Helen M. of The Villages, FL Cielo G.P. of Manila, Philippines ENTER NOW:
In a Milestone item in the August 2016 issue, Strings described Maurice Ravel’s Bolero as having entered the public domain. It has not entered the public domain in the United States. Strings regrets the error.
By Stephanie Powell Once security waves the Strings staff into the parking lot, we pass a pair of what appear to be two-story-high tour buses, enter the backstage interworkings of the Green Music Center, and walk down a hallway lined with autographed photos of…
By Megan Westberg Violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, official Fiddler in Broadway’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, has released a video of her own solo-violin arrangement of “If I Were a Rich Man.” This video was released concurrently with another, the…
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By Cristina Schreil Anyone strolling around San Francisco hot spots in late spring might have encountered a bittersweet sight: the members of the esteemed Cypress Quartet performing Beethoven string quartets on the occasion of its disbanding. For those who missed…
By James N. McKean The importance and sophistication of purfling—and the dangers of making it in the bathtub of a New York apartment “Water is running down!” came a muffled shout from the apartment downstairs, along with the thump of…
By Cristina Schreil The Boston University Tanglewood Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary this season. The longtime summer-training program has helped more than 10,000 high-school-aged musicians over the years. Nestled in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains, BUTI commemorated the occasion with a special…
By Stephanie Powell The second International Piatigorsky Cello Festival delivers all-star talent and a celebration of all things cello Sitting adjacent to Ramo Hall at the University of Southern California after giving an afternoon master class in late May, cellist…
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Quartet San Francisco—violinists Jeremy Cohen and Matthew Szemela, violist Chad Kaltinger, and cellist Andres Vera—stopped by the Strings studio to perform a few pieces: a Michael Jackson medley and “Guamba,” an original piece by QSF founder Jeremy Cohen.
By Inge Kjemtrup Only Pekka Kuusisto could perform one of the great mainstays of the violin repertory, the Tchaikovsky Concerto, and then, as an encore, play a Finnish folk song, getting the audience to sing along. Kuusisto is deservedly known…
By Julian Schwarz Having been born into a multi-generational musical family, I was often told “it’s in your genes” or “it must run in the family.” This always struck me as odd, especially as a youngster, as I was spending…
By Cristina Schreil Talk about power in numbers. A debut album from Trio 180—violinist Ann Miller, cellist Nina Flyer, and pianist Sonia Leong, the faculty piano-trio-in-residence at the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music—presents a fine collection of chamber-music…
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By Greg Olwell Luthier Andrew Carruthers on his journey as a violin maker and leap to graphic design As I walk toward a mid-century ranch house about an hour north of San Francisco, loud scratching sounds come from the garage.…
By Patrick Sullivan Students excited and concerned as two Boston music schools join forces They’ve been next-door neighbors for decades. And now two of the nation’s most venerable music institutions—the Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory—have joined forces,…
San Francisco State’s longtime quartet-in-residence, the Alexander String Quartet, violinists Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz; violist Paul Yarbrough, and cellist Sandy Wilson, stopped by the Strings studio to perform Mozart and Brahms. Watch the quartet in an arresting performance of…
By Inge Kjemtrup For violinists, Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas are the highest peak in the mountain range of the instrument’s repertory. Most professional violinists will scale this peak at some point, as evidenced by the extraordinary number of recordings.…
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By Cristina Schreil How can classical music aid those experiencing homelessness? That’s a question leaders at the Seattle Symphony have asked since a city- and county-wide state of emergency concerning homelessness was declared last November. County sources found that more…
By Cristina Schreil Violinist Mark Kaplan is hardly the first to present an album of these beloved works—in fact, he himself has done it before—but there is something especially engrossing in this performance. As if conjuring a whole atmosphere of…
Text and images by Dimitri Musafia The many similarities with another example exhibited at the Chi Mei Museum in Taiwan provide unprecedented evidence of Stradivari’s case production in series Antonio Stradivari built over 1,100 instruments—many of which left the workshop…
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