Imagine a violin that has had a bigger career than most any musician… Times 10.
Player Violinist Jeremy Cohen is the founder of Quartet San Francisco, an eclectic Grammy-nominated ensemble that regularly jumps boundaries, and Violinjazz, a jazz group and publisher of sheet music for modern string players. The QSF’s latest album is Pacific Premieres: New Works by California Composers (Violinjazz). Cohen also is an active educator, having worked with the Henry Mancini Institute and the California Jazz Conservatory, as well as outreach programs throughout San Francisco Bay Area schools.
[See related article on Jeremy Cohen, here.]
Instrument
1868 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume modeled after a “Golden Period” Stradivari, with D’Addario Zyex G, D, and A strings, and a Hill E string.
Condition
The back is a two-piece flame-maple with wide figure, which runs almost horizontally across its breadth. The top is two pieces of medium-wide grain spruce. The varnish is a golden-orange-brown
color.
Bow
François Nicolas Voirin, made some time before his death in 1885, with a tip
graft by Paul Siefried.
[Editor’s note: Voirin was a cousin of J.B. Vuillaume and worked in his shop, from 1855 to 1870.]
The Instrument in Action
The FaJubilee Overture 1954 – MGM 30th Anniversary
Here is the famous instrument with its previous owner Lou Raderman in this MGM Orchestra video.
The violin is highlighted when Lou takes a solo at 3:17.
Remember this sound while growing up to Tom & Jerry cartoons?
Jeremy Cohen plays the “Whisker Pluck” for us.
Check out the history of credits with Lou Raderman playing this violin.
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