The 12-year-old violinist Clara Shen from Puchheim earned the top score among 55 participants in the German Musical Instrument Fund competition in Hamburg and will be loaned a Carlo Antonio Testore violin from 1740 in Milan for a year by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. She is set to perform at the Menuhin Competition in April, for which she qualified as the only German entrant. Also mentioned is Tasssilo Probst, 15, from Emmering, who participated and was loaned a Giovanni Grancino violin for another year.
Article discusses an old cello, built by Johann Antes, found abandoned in a Pennsylvania attic and later sold at auction for $20,740 to Thomas Riddle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The instrument is the oldest surviving cello made in America and was examined by Moravian Historical Society; the piece mentions Antes family history and Bethlehem origins.
The instrument once owned by Albert Einstein is going up for sale in New York by Bonhams. The item is valued between 100,000 and 150,000 dollars. The violin bears the inscription Made for the world's greatest scientist Professor Albert Einstein by Oscar H. Steger, Feb 1933, Harrisburg.
The article reports that Albert Einstein's violin, made by Oscar Steger of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, fetched $516,500 at Bonhams New York auction. The instrument was presented to Einstein in 1933 and later gifted to Lawrence Hibbs, remaining in the family since. Quotes mention Einstein’s love of music and a biographical note about his musical activities.
The Violin Channel reports that a spruce-top, maple-sides violin believed to have been owned and played by Albert Einstein sold in New York for $516,500, well above its original estimate. The instrument was crafted by American maker Oscar H. Steger in 1933 and bore an inside label referencing Professor Albert Einstein. Bonhams handled the sale, which far exceeded the initial estimate of $100,000–$150,000.
Albert Einstein’s violin, reportedly gifted to the son of a Princeton janitor, sold for $516,500 at Bonhams in New York. The instrument was inscribed by its maker, Oscar H. Steger, and later passed to Sylas Hibbs’ family.
The instrument, a violin made by Oscar Steger and gifted to Albert Einstein, sold for $516,500 at Bonhams’ books and manuscripts auction in New York City on March 9. Einstein received the violin in 1933 and later gave it to Lawrence Hibbs; the sale price followed a bidding battle that pushed above its low estimate.
The article reports that Albert Einstein’s violin, made in Pennsylvania by Oscar Steger, sold for $516,500 at a New York auction, well above its $150,000 catalog estimate. It notes that Einstein valued music, began playing at age 6, and that the instrument was later passed to the son of a Princeton janitor; Ian Ehling of Bonhams Auctions is quoted.
Elizabeth Pitcairn, a Philadelphia-area violin soloist, will perform on a 300-year-old Stradivarius known as the Red Mendelssohn, valued at $1.7 million. The recital is at the Great Hall of Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, with pianist Louise Thomas.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has reopened its André Mertens Musical Instrument Gallery after a two-year renovation and re-curation, featuring more than 5,550 instruments from six continents, including violins and cellos by Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Amati.
Kristi Seehafer, a first violinist with the Nashville Symphony, discusses playing the Violins of Hope, a collection of about two dozen instruments once owned by Jews who survived the Holocaust. The violins, restored by Israeli luthier Avshi Weinstein and his family, include pieces with histories from both Jewish musicians who fled Germany and prisoners in concentration camps.