Exclusive: Six bows seized by US Customs as festival orchestra hits New York
mainWe hear that six Hungarian string players were forced to surrender their bows on suspicion of ivory importation when the Budapest Festival Orchestra arrived in New York at the weekend.
The orch gave a stunning Dvorak concert Sunday night at Lincoln Center, so we assume the bows have been returned to their rightful owners, but the chaos created by Washington’s elephant protection ordinances has not abated yet at major airports, despite a slight easing of the rules.
Apparently, instrument passports are not enough to put you in the clear. It’s a jungle out there.
UPDATE: It took three days to get the bows released.
Could we please have a Colbert interview of these guys? What does the US gov have against classical music? Oh, I know. It’s partly from Europe.