The article profiles 14-year-old Nathan Benning, who crafted a violin 14 months in the making and has become the fourth generation in the Benning family to build premium violins at Studio City Music in Studio City, California. It describes his family lineage of instrument makers, including his father Eric Benning and grandfather Hans Benning, and notes the family's long history dating back to 1901 with Carl Becker Sr. and Paul Toenniges.
Karl Wilhelm Geck reports that a three-movement Violin Concerto in E minor discovered in Schrank II manuscripts Mus.2364-O-7 and Mus.2364-O-9 is a pasticcio: the middle movement is the Adagio from Antonio Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in B-flat major RV 366 (Il Carbonelli), transposed from D minor to E minor, likely linked to Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli.
The article reports Vadim Repin performing Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto in A minor without a conductor, with the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra, described as the world’s first conductorless performance. The premiere took place during the Trans Siberian Arts Festival in Novosibirsk, recorded on April 14, 2014, and notes conductor Valery Gergiev’s last-minute cancellation.
Nathan Benning, 14, the son of Eric Benning and grandson of Hans and Nancy Benning, completes his first violin at the Bennings’ Studio City shop. The instrument, modeled after a Stradivarius, was crafted under his father and grandparents and will be played by Nathan himself.
The Violin Channel reports that Maxim Vengerov is set to perform the original scoring of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra during its 2015 season, making him one of a handful of violinists granted permission to perform the work. The article notes the original version’s history, including revisions by Sibelius, a 1991 permission for a live performance and recording by Leonidas Kavakos, and mentions other related performances.
The Argus reports that two men tricked an 87-year-old woman in Clapham, Arun district, into allowing them to inspect her cellos, then stole a French cello, a fine English cello, two Roy Collins bows, and two cello cases valued at more than £10,000.