Composer Anna Clyne and the violin with a lion-head scroll that she discovered.
In Monday’s (8/19) Strad (U.K.), an unbylined article states, “In 2008, composer Anna Clyne was in an Oxfam charity shop in Oxford … when she noticed a dusty violin case … She opened up the case to discover a violin inside. ‘It didn’t have a bridge or any strings, and it looked a little beaten up,’ she recalls. What was remarkable to her was the violin’s scroll, which portrays a lion’s head with its tongue sticking out. Priced at £5.99, Clyne was quick to snap up this bargain and took the violin to Bruno Guastalla, a violin maker who owns Oxford Violins. Gustalla informed Clyne that it would cost £100-200 to repair … Later, Clyne received a message from Guastalla on social media, saying he had heard her music and offered to exchange repair of the violin for composition lessons… The next time Clyne was in the UK, she dropped off the violin for repair with Guastalla, and the two embarked on a knowledge exchange of composition lessons…. Clyne, having previously played the cello, reached out to violinist Cornelius Dufallo, for another exchange: this time violin lessons in exchange for a new violin work. The resulting composition was Blue Hour, written by Clyne for Dufallo and his violinist wife, Amy Kauffman. The work then expanded into a suite of seven pieces called The Violin.”
