What makes a person invest tens of millions of dollars in dozens of fine violins, violas and cellos?
"Looking back at it, frankly, it s a kind of madness that seizes you," violin collector David Fulton told me in an interview last month. "When I bought my first good violin, I thought that was going to be it. And in fact it was, for 10 years or so. But always had the idea in the back of my mind, Gee, wouldn t it be nice to have a Strad, if I was able to do that. "
A co-founder of Fox Software who eventually served as Microsoft’s Vice President for Database Products until his retirement in 1994, Fulton collected 28 of the finest violins, cellos and violas in existence over a period of 40 years, as well as dozens of bows. Among them were eight Stradivaris, eight instruments by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, and an assortment of other fine instruments by great makers: Bergonzi, Guadagnini, Amati, Montagnana, Pietro Guarneri and more.
Then, over a period of 12
Musicians around the world are remembering the talented and versatile Finnish violinist, conductor and composer Jaakko Kuusisto, who died Wednesday at age 48 after a two-year battle with brain cancer.
Born into a family of musicians, including his grandfather, Taneli Kuusisto, and his father, Ilkka Kuusisto, both composers, Kuusisto and his younger brother Pekka Kuusisto started violin at an early age. Kuusisto attended the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he studied violin with Géza Szilvay and Tuomas Haapanen, and composition with Eero Hämeenniemi. He later came to the U.S. to attend Indiana University s (now-Jacobs) School of Music, where he studied violin with Miriam Fried and Paul Biss, and composition with David Dzubay.
As a young violinist, Kuusisto was a stand-out in the international violin competition circuit, winning first prize at the 1989 Kuopio Violin Competition when he was 15, and then placing as a finalist in the International Sibelius Violin Competition in
The owner of a home in Savoy where state police broke up a large-scale illicit marijuana grow in 2020 appears ready to do more than throw in the towel. The
Women who live in urban and rural areas get screened for breast cancer at similar rates, but rural women get screened for colorectal cancer at significantly lower rates than their urban counterparts, new research reveals.