Monday Morning Violin Gossip, Op. 2, No. 8

By Darcy Lewis

Recently, the LA Times ran a violin-related article that is just so intriguing, so well-written, that it defies easy summary.

Carla Shapreau describes herself “as the only violin-making attorney anyone had ever heard of.” This rare combination of skills and knowledge led her to represent UCLA in its lawsuit to regain possession of its Stradivarius violin that had been lost or stolen in 1967 and remained hidden for 27 years.

Read this excerpt, then set aside a few minutes to read the entire piece online:

“Nadia Tupica was driving down the freeway in her cream-colored convertible Thunderbird when she spotted what looked like a small body. She pulled over to investigate.

As Tupica approached the object on the ground, she must have been alarmed that someone was hurt—or worse. The searing August heat pulsed against her skin. The wall of sound from cars racing by filled her ears. But as Tupica got closer, she realized that what she had seen was not a body but an oblong case protected by a canvas cover lying among bits of trash, ice plants and poisonous oleander growing along the freeway corridor.

It would have been tempting to open the case right there. Perhaps Tupica leaned down, popped the two fasteners and lifted the lid. Sitting snugly within the case's plush green velvet lining were two violins and two bows. One violin looked far older than the other; its wood had aged amber-brown beneath worn varnish with plum-red remnants. Tupica picked up the case by its leather handle, put it in her T-Bird and drove off.

By the time I learned about Tupica she was dead. Having missed her by nearly two decades, I could not ask her what she thought when she opened the instrument case, or when she peeked into the f-hole carved into the belly of the older violin.”

The “older violin,” it turns out, was an honest-to-goodness Strad valued at around $800,000. For reasons known only to Tupica, she retained possession of the instrument until her death, when she “bequeathed” it to her nephew and his then-wife, violinist Teresa Salvato, who “took custody” of the instrument upon their divorce. After seeking to learn the truth about the mysterious violin’s lineage, Salvato declined to return it to its rightful owner, causing the affair to escalate and enter the legal system. Salvato and the university settled a year later, in 1995. So why did Shapreau write an article more than 10 years later?

According to Shapreau, UCLA is considering selling the Strad, nicknamed the Alcantara: “But the Alcantara's fate is now uncertain. I recently learned that steep reductions in state funding have led UCLA's music department to explore alternate ways to finance student scholarships. Among the ideas it has considered: selling the Alcantara. The money from a sale would allow UCLA to buy numerous violins for its students to play. The proceeds would also fund many much-needed scholarships for years to come. In this way, the Strad gives if it stays or goes.”

Read the complete article here, then Laurie's take, too.

Musician News

I’m told that Elena Urioste, a third year violin student at the Curtis Institute, is the subject of the cover article (and cover photo) of the most recent issue of Careers and Colleges magazine. This magazine is circulated to most high schools, colleges and libraries across the country. Unfortunately, this magazine’s rudimentary website does not include any text or images from the current issue.

2/16/06 - The Kansas City Star had an interesting article about the connection between married couple Robb Aistrup (bass) and Nicola Payne (violin), displaced musicians from the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Steven Peters, a bassist for the Kansas City Symphony for 22 years, who was shot and killed when burglars broke into his home in September. The Aistrup-Paynes received a call after the storm from Brian Rood, chairman of the Kansas City Symphony musician's committee, inviting Aistrup to audition for Peters's vacant spot. Airstrup is employed with the orchestra at least until June. The orchestra’s executive director, Frank Byrne, says: "Knowing that Robb and his wife were in this desperate situation, the fact that something positive could come from Steve's murder -- that we could help somebody when we felt so helpless -- was a somewhat bright moment in an otherwise terrible time for our organization." Meanwhile, Nicola Payne "is studying for a new career in medicine."

2/13/06 - Jonathan Carney, concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, participated in a well-attended post-concert Q&A with Music Director Designate Marin Alsop, reports the Washington Times. Alsop’s comments mainly focused on her emerging plans after she takes the reins of the orchestra next January.

2/13/06 - James Levine, whose contract as music director of the Metropolitan Opera runs through the 2010-11 season, said Monday he will stay at least two additional seasons for a new staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle, according to the Associated Press. “This will be the centerpiece of the Met's 2013 celebration marking the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth."

2/13/06 - Violinist Cho-Liang Lin and cellist Felix Fan performed the world premiere of Gordon Shi-Wen Chin's Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra with the San Diego Symphony, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Though the nearly 40-minute concerto doesn't quite justify its length, it's an unmistakably virtuosic work -- ambitious enough to include elaborate passages for the two main instruments and sufficiently unusual to contain orchestra effects involving water, wind chimes and even torn sheets of paper…Whether their parts were confrontational or cohesive, Fan and Lin excelled ... as did the orchestra in its challenging role." Naxos will record the piece with the Kansas City Symphony in April.

2/12/06 - Min Jin Kym, a London-based violinist , was recently awarded the first Heifetz Prize by the Jascha Heifetz Society (see item below). As a result, Kym will give her Carnegie Hall debut and tour Europe and the Far East. Society board President Claire Hodgkins, Heifetz's former student and assistant, said: "[Kym] has amazing spirit, just doesn't sound like anyone else but herself, and people deserve to know who she is."

2/6/06 – Composer and violinist Jonathan Leshnoff was profiled in the Baltimore Sun. His Violin Concerto, which was premiered earlier this season by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, was recently performed by the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. The article quotes Columbus concertmaster Charles Wetherbee, the soloist for the piece's premiere: "From the first time I heard Jonathan's music, I felt there was something in it that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck." For Leshnoff, the Violin Concerto "is about the process of emergence ... Themes become more and more developed, leading to the elegiac finale."

Orchestra News

2/14/06 – According to the Allentown (PA) Morning Call, the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra formally has joined the Allentown Symphony Association and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra in discussing plans to form one classical music organization. “The orchestras will offer patrons not only separate subscriptions to each orchestra's season but also the opportunity to mix and match concerts from the three orchestras at discounted package prices. The Sinfonia board also has agreed to join ongoing talks about the potential merger, intended to create a stronger, unified organization ... Officials of the three orchestras insisted the groups want to maintain their separate identities while sharing a space and a season… [Chamber Orchestra President James] Bartholomew said the unions were formally notified of the merger discussions and that informal reaction was 'positive.' "

Other News

2/13/06 - The City of Seattle is replacing its generic Muzak with recordings by local musicians, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Anyone calling City Hall will be serenaded by locally-produced music while they're on hold. The program is a great way to support local artists and expose more people to the incredible diversity of music this city has to offer."

2/12/06 - The Los Angeles Times recently profiled the Jascha Heifetz Society, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to sustaining the late violinist's legacy. The society puts on master classes, offers study scholarships and “seeks to preserve Heifetz's influence by searching for young artists worthy of his name's imprimatur and then presenting them onstage." Board Vice President Sherry Kloss recalls Heifetz as "a tough taskmaster" who "pushed you to find your own voice" and tells the paper: "The tragedy is that once these artists are gone, they're forgotten ... If we don't do it, Heifetz is just a figment in people's minds."

2/11/06 – The Wall Street Journal ran a provocative article about salaries in the performing arts, examining in particular those of music directors in American orchestras: "Overall, roughly a dozen conductors made more than $500,000 in the season ending in 2004. The top half-dozen earned between $1 million and $2 million." The article continues, "For years, orchestras have been willing to pay a premium for star conductors whom they count on to fill seats, attract talented musicians and recruit donors. But while that strategy has worked in the past, it isn't clear it will continue to be viable. 'Orchestras have to be rethinking every aspect of the way this business is run,' says Henry Fogel, president of the American Symphony Orchestra League." The article particularly cites the generosity of Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Christoph Eschenbach, who "returned 10 percent of his salary as a donation in 2004 and again in 2005."

2/6/06 - The Washington Post reported on a Swedish science team's efforts to duplicate the craftsmanship of Antonio Stradivari's violins via a computer program: "Instead of trying to build a duplicate Stradivarius part by part, why not start with a computer model of a whole violin, tinker with it electronically until its sound matches a Stradivarius -- and then build it?" The team, which is based out of Mid Sweden University, has proposed building a violin with two tops: "Carve one top, install it, and measure and calibrate the sound of the resulting instrument. Then load these parameters into the computer and carve a different piece of wood so as to duplicate the sound produced by the first ... If, and only if, the two-tops experiment succeeds, will the team ask for the privilege of measuring and, perhaps, duplicating an actual Stradivarius."

Link to previous columns