Chinatown Strad may fetch $18 million
NewsSotheby’s is selling the 1714 ’Joachim-Ma’ Stradivarius violin in Feburary, with estimates ranging from $12m to $18 million. All proceeds will go to the New England Consevatory of Music (NEC).
The owner’s life story is instructive.
Ma Si-hon, who died in September 2009, was president of the Si-Yo Music Society which presented chamber music concerts in New York’s Chinatown from 1971, later upgrading to Lincoln Center, where they performed with major names until 2004. Ma himself performed on a Stradivarius violin which is thought to be the one Joseph Joachim played at the premiere of the Brahms Violin Concerto.
Ma was born near Canton, China, on April 3, 1925, reaching the US in 1948. He took a Masters at the New England Conservatory and played in the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, before joining pianist Tung Kwong-Kwong as a touring duo, appearing at the Salzburg and Dartington Festivals and the Far East.
In 1958, Ma invented a vastly improved mute for stringed instruments, the Si-Hon Mute. From 1971 to 1994, he was a professor of music at Kent State University in Ohio. He bequethed the Strad in his will to NEC, his alma mater.
NEC president Andrea Kalyn said: ’After years of individual use by our students, now, we can establish the largest student scholarship programme in the history of NEC, honouring our mission to educate and train the next generation of musicians.’
As an NEC alum, I say bravo!
The Chinatown is appropriate in the title of this post because Ma and his wife, both distingioshed musicians who had studied in the US and remained there, wanted their Si-Yo Society to help develop audiences for classical music from within the Chinese community.
No wonder they are selling it…nobody liked it at NEC…big name, mediocre violin….
I heard and played with that violin many times when I was there, when it was shared between two fellow students who are now both world class soloists. Beautiful sound, but hard to adjust and constantly struggling to project at a professional level.
As a matter of curiosity: when did Ma purchase the Joachim Strad, and what was the price at the time? What a superb example of generosity to have willed such an appreciating asset to the NEC!
Si-Hon Ma received the Joachim Stradivari violin from the Roth company as payment for the patent on his “Sihon” mute
Wow. I don’t know who won the barter financially but I would’ve taken that violin too.
The owner of this instrument sounds like an honorable, capable, unselfish musician who cared about his students and the institution where he taught.
The headline conjures images of “otherness” and seems demeaning, to me.
This was a musician who had the acute intellect and instinct to own an extraordinary instrument and to leave it to a music school instead of “making a killing” out of selling it.
Incidentally, Tung Kwong Kwong was an excellent pianist. From 1948 to 1959, she performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra 18 times. In 1990, she gave her Carnegie Hall debut recital, which I was privileged to attend.