Irish violinist
Cora
Venus Lunny, 22, has scaled many heights
in her short but illustrious career: At age six, after
a recital at National Concert Hall, she was invited by
Lord Yehudi Menuhin to study at his school in Surrey,
England (Lunny turned him down at the time); she was named
a laureate of the 2000 Sarasate Competition in Pamplona,
Spain; and recently founded the 15-piece chamber ensemble
I Fiori.
Now Lunny
can add film actress and composer to her growing resumé.
This spring,
Lunny contributed a cameo role to 3Crosses, a
gritty gangster film by award-winning director Jason Figgis
that is set for release later this year. "Filming
3Crosses was tremendous fun," Lunny says.
"Jason filmed my scenes on a crisp winter's
evening in Dublin, and the whole thing was surprisingly
quick and painless: I performed the Bach Chaconne for
one scene."
Figgis was
so pleased with the results that he asked Lunny to compose
a theme for the film. She's already working on a
second project with the director: Lunny is scoring Saint
Graal, an action film set in Medieval times and constructed
around the search for the Holy Grail. And Lunny, who acted
in a couple of movies as a child, is set to portray a
violinist in yet another upcoming Figgis film, Handheld.
"Acting is something of a private passion of mine,"
Lunny confesses, "and I would like to do much more
of it."
Which is not
to say that she's putting her career as a concert
violinist on the shelf: Lunny plans a series of recitals
around Ireland this fall with the brilliant 25-year-old
Japanese pianist Riko Higuma.
—Greg Cahill
Police
Net Fugitive Philanthropist
A New Jersey
tycoon who made his fortune peddling tropical fish and
other pet supplies has been arrested in Germany after
fleeing the United States earlier this year when faced
with arrest for tax fraud. German police took fugitive
philanthropist and amateur violinist Herbert
Axelrod, 77, into custody at the Berlin
Airport on June 16 when he tried to enter the country
from Zurich.
Meanwhile,
the FBI and a US Senate committee are continuing to investigate
Axelrod for what some say is an inflated $50 million tax
credit he claimed in 1998 for donating a quartet of rare
Stradivari stringed instruments to the Smithsonian Institution.
Also under scrutiny is his sale last year of the so-called
Golden Age Collection of Strads and other rare instruments
to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
The FBI reportedly
is probing whether Axelrod, who fled to Cuba in April
after being indicted on unrelated federal-tax charges,
grossly inflated the value of the 30 vintage stringed
instruments in an attempt to claim a large tax write-off.
The instruments—violins, violas, and cellos hand-fashioned
by Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu, and
other lutherie masters of the 17th and 18th centuries—were
sold in a high-profile transaction for $18 million. Axelrod
reportedly donated $4 million toward the purchase and
later forgave a $1 million note. He reportedly claimed
the instruments were worth $50 million.
Both transactions
have come under the review of the US Senate Finance Committee,
which has launched a broad investigation into charitable
donations.
In a published
report in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, NJSO chief
executive officer and president Simon Woods said that
the orchestra staff had engaged in "friendly"
discussions with the FBI over a two-week period. In a
statement posted on the NJSO website, symphony administrators
tried to calm the fears of patrons upset by the probe.
"We have cooperated fully with the federal investigation
involving the prior owner and have been assured by Michael
Guadagno, the assistant US Attorney in charge of the matter,
that the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is not a target
of the investigation," the statement noted.
"The
orchestra conducted an independent and objective due-diligence
process prior to the purchase of these instruments. The
deal negotiated was a very favorable one for the NJSO.
Any doubt or speculation expressed by uninvolved individuals
about the market value of the instruments should not obscure
this very positive fact."
In an April
26 interview with the Associated Press, [Axelrod] blamed
the federal government for persecuting him, saying his
wealth had made him a target. Speaking at his Havana bungalow,
shortly after a federal judge issued a warrant for his
arrest, Axelrod appeared relaxed while clad in a colorful
kimono. The truculent tycoon, who started collecting violins
in the 1970s, said he was passing the time marlin fishing
and smoking Cuban cigars.
—G.C.
No
Kyddin'
The
LAPD is still searching for the bicycling thief who
stole a 17th-century Stradivari cello, owned by the
Los Angeles Philharmonic and valued at $3.5 million,
from a front porch where it had been left by an absent-minded
symphony member. Principal cellist Peter
Stumpf had been playing the cello—made
in 1684 and named for the man who brought it to England—since
he joined the LA Phil in 2002. Three days after the
theft, LA nurse Melanie Stevens found the "General
Kyd" cello next to a dumpster about a mile from
Stumpf's house. Stevens had planned to have a friend
craft the cello into a CD cabinet until she was alerted
to its origin. The cello suffered only minor damage
during the ordeal. Stevens is eligible for a $50,000
reward.
Davy
Crockett, Texas Fiddle King?
"Fiddling
is very much a part of the old-time Texas culture,"
remarks the legendary fiddler Texas
Shorty (aka Jim Chancellor), of Austin,
Texas. Shorty has been a champion Texas-style fiddler
since the age of ten. "We Texans are proud of history,"
he says, "and we're proud of our fiddling."
But even Texas Shorty wasn't prepared for the impact of
the moment in The Alamo—the recent revisionist
epic by filmmaker John
Lee Hancock—in which a
fiddle-toting Davy Crockett (played by Billy Bob Thornton)
ascends an Alamo battlement to face the surrounding Mexican
army, whose drum-and-trumpet band have been nightly taunting
the Texans with a haunting little tune called "DeGuello."
Fiddle in hand, Crockett stands tall as the Texas sunset
paints the sky, and plays an aching fiddle tune along
with the very-surprised Mexican band.
Veteran
musician Craig
Eastman of the outlaw country band Kane
proved instrumental in providing the 150-year-old American-made
fiddle—and the fiddling—for
that emotional moment in the film. "You would have
to play a violin for ten years before you'd be able to
play something like ‘DeGuello'," Eastman notes.
"It's technically difficult to play. Because Billy
is a musician, a good drummer, he really wanted to learn
how to play the actual note-for-note fingering of it to
have it look right."
Says
Texas Shorty, "I'm feeling a little bit warmer about
old Davy Crockett myself, just thinking about it."
—David Templeton
SummerScape
In
its 15th season, the 2004 Bard
Music Festival (August 13—15 and
August 20—22), part of Bard College's annual SummerScape
program, will focus on the former Soviet Union's foremost
composer, Dmitri
Shostakovich. During two summer weekends
of concerts, panel discussions, and a symposium, artistic
directors Leon Botstein, Christopher H. Gibbs, and Robert
Martin will appear along with a host of Shostakovich experts
and musicians from the United States and abroad, including
the American
Symphony Orchestra, the Bard
Festival String Quartet, and violist Kim
Kashkashian. The Shostakovich and his
World programming will comprise nearly one third of SummerScape
2004's presentations. It will feature 11 concerts (including
one of Soviet popular music), each preceded by an informative
talk. Performances will range from solo piano works, songs,
and chamber works to jazz and choral works, and several
symphonies. Many of these works, by Shostakovich as well
as his contemporaries, are rarely heard in concert either
here or abroad. A third weekend of Shostakovich and his
World will take place from November 5 to 7 and will include
an examination of the close friendship between Shostakovich
and his English contemporary, Benjamin
Britten, as well as further focusing on
the composer's life during and after World War II. Performances
will include concerts by the Emerson
String Quartet.
A Brilliant Success
The
first Genius of the Violin Festival, held in London in late
March and early April, provided evidence, if any more had
been needed, that the best violinists are often the biggest
show-offs. Take the opening concert at the Barbican Center:
After French jazz-fusion violinist Didier Lockwood
had brought his playing (literally) to the audience and
gypsy fiddler Roby Lakatos had wowed the
crowd with his showmanship, what could Maxim Vengerov
do but whip through Brahms' Hungarian Dance, No. 5,
at top speed?
No
prizes for guessing that encores went on for 20 minutes.
During the festival's two-week run—which included
concerts, competitions, and lutherie exhibits—there
were moments of flashy fiddle-playing in many genres, including
classical, jazz, klezmer, Irish, and bluegrass. Talented
young violinists took the spotlight at the Yehudi Menuhin
International Competition, which ran concurrently with the
festival. Fifteen-year-old Chicago violinist Joel C. Link
won the junior division while South Korean violinist Hye-Jin
Kim, 18, triumphed in the senior division. Instrument
makers had their chance to shine in the British Violin Making
Association's competition (highest marks for French
luthier Antoine Cauche and British maker
Peter Beare) in addition to 24-hour instrument-
and bow-making marathons.
The
festival's concerts, classes, and events were all
well attended—seems that show-offs always draw a crowd.
—Inge Kjemtrup
Anne
Crowden Rememered
Anne
Crowden, founding director of the Crowden School
in Berkeley, California, died on March 15 of pancreatic
cancer. She was 76. Crowden, who served on the advisory
board
of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, was a distinguished
violin teacher and chamber-music coach. She instilled
music making and inspired appreciation of the highest
order to everyone whose life she touched.
Appointed
to the Royal Academy of Music in 1980 for distinguished
service to music, Crowden was a firm believer that academic
and musical education could go side by side. She started
the Crowden School in 1983 for students ages eight to
18. Midori, Robert McDuffie, and Nadja
Salerno-Sonnenberg were among the prestigious
players who taught master classes there. "Aside
from highly developed bow arms and consequently distinctive
sounds, her students were trained in so much more than
just how to play their instruments," says former
Crowden student and longtime friend Jeremy Cohen
of Quartet San Francisco. "They learned to blend,
how to lead, to communicate, to listen, to stay out
of the way when necessary, and how to give it all you've
got when it's time to and when all else fails,
play the heck out of the first and last notes!
Crowden
is survived by her daughter, Deirdre Cooper,
a cellist in London; four grandchildren; and a brother.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Anne Crowden
Fund at the Crowden School, 1745 Rose St., Berkeley,
CA, 94702.
Archive
Acquired
The
Times of London reports that the Royal Academy
of Music has bought the archive of violinist Yehudi
Menuhin for £1.2 million after striking
a deal with the late musician's family that assures
the "discreet" handling of Menuhin's "intimate"
correspondence with members of the Royal Family. The extensive
archive includes letters from Edward Elgar, Béla
Bartók, and Albert Einstein, original scores by Felix
Mendelssohn, and important musical manuscripts by many of
the composers who worked with Menuhin, including music from
his collaborations with Ravi Shankar and Stéphane
Grappelli. The Royal Academy describes it as "one
of the most valuable and comprehensive collections ever
assembled by an individual musician." The first public
exhibition of the archive took place on March 25 in London.
New
Contract
Violin
phenom Vanessa-Mae,
26, has signed an exclusive contract to record for Sony
Classical. Her first classical crossover album for the label,
due in September, will feature dance-inspired tracks with
new music by Riverdance's Bill Whelan, Vangelis, and
Bombay Dreams composer A.R. Rahman.
Musical
Chairs
Alexander
Barantschik,
concertmaster of San Francisco Symphony, will join the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty beginning this fall.
. . . Séamus
Connolly, a ten-time All-Ireland fiddle
champion and the founder of Boston College's Gaelic
Roots summer school and festival, has been named the Sullivan
Artist in Residence in Irish Music at Boston College. .
. . The Colorado Symphony Orchestra has named Jeffrey
Kahane as its new music director. Kahane,
an acclaimed concert pianist, is the musical director of
the Santa Rosa (California) Symphony. He replaces Marin
Alsop at cso. . . . Justine
Cormack has tendered her resignation as
concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia to become, with
her colleagues in the New Zealand Trio (cellist Ashley
Brown and pianist Sarah Watkins), artists-in-residence
at the University of Auckland.
Kronos
Calls
The
Kronos
Quartet—in collaboration with the
Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College; the American Music Center,
and The Mesa arts center—has announced the third call
for scores for the Kronos: Under 30 Project, a commissioning
and composer-
in-residence program for composers under 30 years of age.
Deadline is October 1. The Kronos: Under 30 Project was
created in 2003, Kronos' 30th anniversary year, to
support the creation of new work by young artists, and to
help Kronos cultivate stronger connections with young composers
to develop lasting artistic relationships with the next
creative generation. Guidelines for eligibility state that
the composer's birth date must be on or after October
1, 1974, and the composer must agree, if selected, to write
a string quartet and provide score and parts to Kronos no
later than October 10, 2005. For details, visit www.kronosquartet.org.
Banff
Competitors
Ten of the world's
top young string quartets will compete in the eighth annual
Banff International String Quartet Competition to be held
from August 31 to September 5 in Banff, Canada. They are:
the Alma
String Quartet (Paris, France), the Carmel
Quartet (Givataim, Israel), the Enso
Quartet (Houston), the Fry
Street Quartet (Logan, Utah), the Jupiter
String Quartet (Boston), the Matangi
Quartet (The Hague, Holland), the Paizo
Quartet (Copenhagen), the Penguin
Quartet (Prague), the Royal String Quartet
(Warsaw), and the Tokai
String Quartet (Toronto).
And
the Winner Is ...
The seventh
annual Sphinx
Competition, presented by the Detroit-based
organization that showcases young black and Latino string
players, announced its winners on February 22. The top players
in the senior division were: (1st place) violist Kaila
Potts, 23, of Cincinnati, Ohio; (2nd place)
double bassist Joseph
Conyers, 22, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
and (3rd place) violinist Mariana
Green, 25, of Bronx, New York. The winners
in the junior division were: (1st place) violinist Trevor
Ochieng, 14, of Wyandanch, New York; (2nd
place) cellist Tony
Rymer, 14, Dorchester, Massachusetts; and
(3rd place) cellist Katherine
Black, 15, of Skokie, Illinois. . . . The
winners of ASTA National Orchestra Festival competition,
held in March at the organization's convention in
Dallas, were the Caddo
Magnet High School Chamber Orchestra (1st
place); Chattahoochee
High School Sinfonia (2nd place); and Lassiter
High School Orchestra (3rd place). The 2004
National Solo Competition winners included, in the senior
division, cellist D.
Joshua Roman (2nd place); cellist Nan
Zhang (3rd place); violinist Noah
Bendix-Balgley (4th place). The winners
in the junior division included violinist Shannon
Lee (2nd place); violinist Lydia
Hong (3rd place); and cellist Sifei
Wen (4th place). No first prizes were awarded
in either solo division. . . . The Zehetmair
Quartet, which picked up a Grammy nomination
and several major prizes last year for its ECM recording
of Schumann's first and third string quartets, has
won two more awards: the coveted Prix Caecilia 2003, given
by the Belgian music press, and the Klara Muziek-Prijs,
from the Flemish classical radio station KLARA. . . . The
Music Board of the Australia Council has announced that
violinist Jan
Sedivka has won the 2004 Don Banks Award,
which carries an annual prize of Aus$60,000. The award is
given to an artist of high distinction who has made an outstanding
and sustained contribution to Australian music over a period
of many years. Sedivka was the subject of the 1999 film
documentary Man of Strings.
Passings
Renowned
jazz violinist Claude
"Fiddler" Williams, an influential
musical figure for eight decades, died April 25 of pneumonia
in a Kansas City hospital. He was 96. "There's
a great case for saying Claude Williams was the only real
jazz violinist who ever lived," says Matt Glaser,
jazz violinist and chair of the string department at the
Berklee College of Music in Boston. "He's the
only [string] player who understood the subtle, deeply American
swing feeling that came out of Kansas City. As a member
of Count Basie's famous band, as a roommate to the
great saxophonist Lester Young, and as a teacher to Charlie
Parker, Claude was there at the most important moments in
American music. Every note he played was the real thing."
. . . The Kansas City Symphony lost one of its rising stars
and most popular members, 30-year-old cellist Veronica
Freeman, to a short illness. Freeman, who
recently had taken on additional responsibilities as assistant
personnel manager with the symphony, died March 11, just
one week after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
. . . Composer, violinist, and educator John
Mayer died March 15 after being struck by
a car while crossing a road near his home in Birmingham,
England. Born in Calcutta, Mayer innovated a fusion of techniques
blending Indian and Western music. He was 73. . . . Violinist
and conductor Iona
Brown, who served as the director of the
Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields in London and
the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, died of cancer in early
June in her hometown of Salisbury, England. She was 63.
. . . William
H. Moennig III, a respected Philadelphia
luthier and founding member of the American Federation of
Violin and Bow Makers, died February 26. Moennig, 73, was
the third generation in a family of violin dealers and makers.
He trained with Amédée Dieudonné in
Mirecourt, France, and at the violin-making school in Mittenwald
under Leo Aschauer, before studying instrument repair in
Philadelphia. In 1975 he took over the family business from
his father and until his death served as president of the
violin shop. William Moennig & Son, Ltd. is now operated
by his son, William R. Moennig, his sister, Pamela Moennig
Taplinger, and business partner Richard J. Donovan.
News, from the US or abroad, is always welcome. Please
mail to Greg Cahill, News & Notes, Strings, PO Box 767, San
Anselmo, CA 94979; fax to (415) 485-0831; or email to greg@stringletter.com.
Lights,
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