


fingerboard, overlapping them so there is no potential for bend-age. This is not shown in the picture, but I also made another small reinforcement that went right at the base of where the back of the neck joins to the body of the violin. I folded a strip of cardboard over several times until it was really thick and tough and attached that like a bracket under a shelf (shown in a picture below)
Once it’s spray painted silver, it looks amazing, so don’t worry about any imperfections. You’ll need 4 of these strings and they should each measure from the tail piece all the way to the top of the
neck where the scroll will go. Just approximate on the longer side and you can always rip it to make the string shorter if necessary.
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Naxos CD has landed!
Thank you to everyone that worked on this album – it is a dream come true. I am also very proud to help promote Lawrence Dillon’s wonderful compositions as I think he is extremely gifted. Thank you to Norbert Kraft for being a fantastic editor! Thank you to fellow musicians David Fung, Juan-Miguel Hernandez and Stan Muncy. Thank you to Sphinx and Naxos for giving me this wonderful opportunity! This is beginning to sound like an Oscars speech, but I might as well finish anyway. Thank you to my husband, Ryan, my wonderful parents, Rudy and Deniese, my teacher, Robert Lipsett and to all of my talented students. This is for you.
The CD will be for sale on the Naxos Website and in stores soon. Or you can buy it directly from me or at Metzler Violins for $20 and half the proceeds go to my camp, Center Stage Strings.
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I recently soloed with the Santa Monica Symphony under the direction of Maestro Allen Robert Gross. I had a wonderful time and agreed to do something I normally wouldn’t do – talk to the audience right before playing my concerto! It was Allen’s idea, and turned out to be a great one. The audience really reacted to the talk and many people came to me afterward, saying it gave them much more insight, focus, and enjoyment while I was actually playing the concerto.
CLICK HERE to watch a video of my foray into “audience engagement”. Make sure to turn up your volume!
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Anna Vosbigian and Youjin Lee, my students at the Colburn School of Performing Arts and the Colburn Academy, recently won competitions to perform their concertos with orchestras. Anna will perform the Vieuxtemps concerto in January with the South Coast Symphony as part of the Young Stars of the Future concert this Friday, February 4th. More information www.southcoastsymphony.org/young_stars.php Youjin Lee will perform the Conus Violin Concerto with the Downey Symphony under conductor Sharon Lavery in October later this year. www.downeysymphony.org
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Thank you to James Seligman for his incredible work on a 15 minute documentary about our summer music camp in Three Rivers, CA.
Click here to view video.
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The 14th Annual Sphinx Competition, held in Detroit, Michigan February 3-6th welcomes semi-finalists from across the country to compete for a myriad of prizes. Danielle was the Grand Prize Winner in 2008 and was invited this year to join the judging panel along with Pamela Frank, Michael Tree, Sanford Allen, Richard Aaron and others. For more information, visit www.sphinxmusic.org
Also, thank you to Laurie Niles for her wonderful article on Violinist.com about a panel discussion called “Musical Toolbox” about the different paths a young musician can take toward a career in music.
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A big Thank You to Ken Elias for his wonderfully extensive and passionate narrative! Ken recalls the events leading up to the creation of the camp and reminisces about the week itself. Click here to read the full story. An excerpt is listed below.
I. Eleven Weeks
About four months ago I got a call from Bill Haxton. He was excited about something. He had met a visitor to Three Rivers outside Sierra Subs, an engaging young woman, who told him that some months earlier her parents had moved to Three Rivers, and she was visiting them. It was her first time seeing our town, and she was interested to learn about it and its people.
At some point in the conversation, quite by chance, she mentioned she played the violin. “Really!” said Bill. They then had quite an animated conversation about the Concert on the Grass, and Bill expressed our eagerness to welcome her to our town and have her perhaps participate in our annual Fall outdoor concert. They exchanged contact information and resolved to stay in touch.
A day or two later Bill sent me an email with an internet link. It was to a YouTube video of this same woman playing a beautiful violin solo with a symphony orchestra. Bill implored me, “You simply must hear her!” He was right. And since then, some of these YouTube links have been making the rounds in Three Rivers, and now, everyone knows her name, she is Danielle Belen.
Subsequently Bill and Anne invited some folks to their house for dinner to meet Danielle’s husband, Ryan Vaughn, and her parents, Rudy and Deniese Nesmith. The conversation centered on an idea that Danielle had gotten, based in part on her warm welcome by Bill and other people in town. What if Three Rivers were to host a summer music camp for extraordinary students, the kind of students that she taught at The Colburn School in Los Angeles? What would it look like? What would it take to make it happen? How much would it cost? Where could it take place, what facilities were available? What pianos were available? How many people might attend a concert or two? Lots and lots of questions were thrown about, and possibilities considered………click to read full story
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Chaconne
My good friend and Center Stage Strings cohort Bill Haxton is a talented writer and has graciously agreed to share this wonderful poem with us. . We share a mutual admiration and wonderment at the masterwork that is Bach’s Chaconne. Bill took an interesting approach and actually wrote this from the perspective of a skeptic. Enjoy
Chaconne
Let me see if I understand you.
This moment began three centuries ago
when Johann Sebastian Bach poured his soul into a constellation
of pen strokes? And you say those notes on paper are like
tiny stars bursting to radiate beyond their musical
fieldlines? What? Are we supposed to believe there’s something
more to this—what did you call it—a chaconne or something? As if
this music had some special power to penetrate, like neutrinos
passing through Earth without touching a single atom of it?
I don’t think so. There’s not enough space in us, not nearly enough
to enable these ephemerals to get past the hammering clamour
between the ears. No. And it doesn’t mean a thing, all us sitting here
transfixed—and I admit it—me too—because it’s not the music,
it’s just the collective consciousness working, our synchronous
background radiation, the human universe in D minor,
which Bach couldn’t have known a thing about.
Or could he?
Oh my god.
©William Haxton 2010
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Thank you to Mariano Correa for this lovely article in Hoy, the Spanish newspaper division of the Los Angeles Times!!
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