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The Red Violin comes to Saginaw

Elizabeth Pitcairn and her Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius Violin
(Courtesy Photo)

 

Through the sponsorship of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, Elizabeth Pitcairn performed a concert for Saginaw Township music students at White Pine Middle School on Thursday, March 24th, playing her famous “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius Violin.

This is Pitcairn’s third time in Saginaw to perform with the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra.  Two years ago, she performed a recital for the students of Heritage High School and allowed one of the students to play on the Red Violin.

Pitcairn, along with Catherine McMichael on piano, performed three pieces interspersed with anecdotes about the pieces and her experience with playing the infamous violin and its maker, Stradivarius.

There were over 200 students in the crowd along with teachers and parents. Pitcairn graciously stayed past the end of the concert to chat with students, sign autographs, and listen to a few high school students play for her.

Jason Pfeifer, orchestra teacher for White Pine Middle School and Heritage High School, is in his fourth year of teaching in Saginaw Township.  He received a Masters degree in Violin performance from Central Michigan University, and two Bachelors degrees in Music Education and Violin Performance from Baldwin-Wallace College (Ohio).  As a professional violinist, he plays with the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra and Midland Symphony Orchestra.

Pfeifer teaches 6-12th grade orchestra and the district teaches stringed instruments from 5-12th grade. There are approximately 220 students in 6-12th grade orchestra. A Chicago orchestra trip is planned coming for the weekend of May 20th, involving a combined 7-8th grade orchestra, and a combined 9-12th grade orchestra. Concerts in May include the Heritage HS orchestra, May 18th at 7:00 p.m. in Vasher Theater, and White Pine MS orchestras, May 26 at 7:00 p.m. in the Auditorium.

A native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Pitcairn began studying the violin at age three and performed her first concerto with an orchestra at 14. Her path brought her to Los Angeles to study with preeminent violin professor Robert Lipsett, at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

She is currently a member of the distinguished faculty at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She was a former adjunct professor of violin at the USC Thornton School
of Music, teaching there from 2001 - 2008. Pitcairn is on the Board of Directors and an alumna of the Young Musicians Foundation (Los Angeles), the American Youth Symphony (Los
Angeles) and the Luzerne Music Center (NY).

Pitcairn’s historic violin was crafted in 1720 by Antonio Stradivari, who lovingly made his instruments in his small shop in Cremona, Italy centuries ago, and remains the most famous violin maker of all time. Not long after its creation, the instrument appeared to vanish from the radar screen; no one knows where or to whom the violin belonged for more than 200 years.

The 1720 “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius would eventually surface in 1930s Berlin. It had been purchased by an heir to the great composer, Felix Mendelssohn. In 1945, it was purchased by a New York industrialist who kept the instrument in impeccable performance condition. Much of its original burnished red varnish remains on the violin today, and it is thought to be one of the best sounding and most beautiful of Stradivari’s remaining violins.

Then on Thanksgiving Day in 1990, the instrument’s fate would once again be triggered when the industrialist opted to put the Red Violin on the auction block anonymously at Christie’s of London. While some of the worlds’ most powerful sought to win the coveted instrument, it landed in the hands of a then sixteen year old American solo violinist, Elizabeth Pitcairn.

Pitcairn would come to view the violin as her life’s most inspiring mentor and friend. Many have said that the violin has finally found its true soul mate in the gifted hands of the young violinist who is the first known solo artist to ever bring it to the great concert halls of the world, and who has made it her goal to share the violin’s magical beauty of sound with people of all ages, professions and cultures.

Today, Pitcairn and the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius violin continue to foster one of classical music’s most compelling partnerships.

For more information about Elizabeth Pitcairn, visit her website at www.elizabethpitcairn.com.

 

 

 

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