An American concertmaster plays his last

Milwaukee says farewell this weekend to the much loved Frank Almond.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Frank Almond is many things.

A violin virtuoso. A widower raising two teenage daughters. A 57-year-old who has come to realize that however you might draw up a schedule, however long you practice in a rehearsal room, stuff happens, life intervenes.

Along the way, you might even become the victim of a robbery, a prized Stradivarius violin taken one winter’s night in 2014 and recovered a little more than a week later in a Milwaukee attic.

For 25 years, Almond was concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the first violin who sat just to the left of the conductor.

He was supposed to end his MSO tenure in musical glory at the conclusion of the 2019-20 season with a capstone performance of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto….

Read on here.