Gibson’s Bookstore
Yeah, Gibson’s Bookstore!!!!! A rainy night, mud by the front door–in the longest-running re-construction of a Main Street ever witnessed–and still a warm, receptive and enthusiastic audience!—two musical moms praising celebrated Concord Community Music School and their family of string players; a couple with a very long memory who came to hear the story behind the 2011 concert featuring the Hutchins Consort at St. Paul’s School; others less talkative but still engaged by the remarkable, and unlikely tale of Carleen Hutchins. A night at Gibson’s proved that community is both vitally real, and virtual at the same time! It is ...
Read MoreThe Metropolitan Museum of Art Bridge
At Home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a Hutchins Violin Octet and One Lucky Research Fellow In late 1988, Carleen Hutchins donated a Violin Octet to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to honor the 100th Anniversary of the Crosby Brown Musical Instruments Collection. The first exhibition of the Hutchins Violin Octet went on display in the spring of 1989, running March through July of that year. A decade later, in October, 1999, a change in administration of the galleries brought the Hutchins Violin Octet out from the catacombs again—when museum curators asked Hutchins to return to the museum to examine ...
Read MoreNewburyport Literary Festival
An attentive, insightful and enthusiastic audience of 50 or so came to the Newburyport Public Library on Saturday April 30 to hear a late afternoon lecture about violinmaker Carleen Hutchins. The slide presents a photo of the Hutchins Consort, of San Diego, CA, in 2000, the year it was founded by bassist Joe McNalley (far right) who first heard the contrabass as a college student when Hutchins came to the University of California-San Diego to give a lecture-demontration....
Read MoreScience Demonstration
April 28, Barnes & Noble, Nashua. Luthier Alan Carruth, of Newport, demonstrates Chladni patterns on a free cello plate carved by Carleen Hutchins by sprinkling glitter on the open plate and then vibrating the plate at specific frequencies. Hutchins’s technique of applying Chaldni sound patterns to fiddle plates—and her publishing legacy related to her violin acoustics experiments–made her an international celebrity in the violinmaking field, in addition to the fact that she invented a Violin Octet. ...
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Apr 23: Toadstool Books, Milford
Despite gorgeous spring weather on Saturday, April 23, Toadstool Books in Milford hosted a small, but enthusiastic, and very in-depth discussion about fiddles, musical acoustics and the female violinmaker who changed nearly every paradigm in the violin world—one fiddle at a time—Carleen Hutchins. Tom Knatt, a luthier who studied with Hutchins and now primarily makes guitars, joined booksmith Toni Syrmopoulos and John Scott, a string bass and bass guitar player, both of Lyndeborough, for an detailed talk about science, Chladni patterns and the violin octet—eight fiddles across the range of written music, from an 11-inch treble to a seven-foot contrabass....
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Gregory Singer and David Mignano
Gregory Singer of Gregory Singer Fine Violins, 246 West 80th Street, NYC, a violin dealer, founder and conductor of the Manhattan Symphonie, violinist and fiddler, plays fiddle, with David Mignano—a luthier who studied with Hutchins, performs on bass. A musical celebration of luthier Carleen Hutchins. ...
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Jalopy Theatre
Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn–what a perfect setting for an American Luthier book launch event! A vintage, brick-lined acoustic folk theatre, surrounded by vintage stringed instruments—mandolins, dulcimers, banjos—a theatre, music school, instrument shop and luthier repair shop all-in-one–and hosted by Jalopy owner Lynette Wiley who could not have been a more generous or gracious host! ...
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Cellist Akua Dixon
Cellist Akua Dixon plays her Hutchins Baritone Violin–the very first baritone that Hutchins ever made. Violinmaker and cellist, both long-time residents of Montclair, often shared mutual interests as neighbors. Hutchins loaned and eventually gifted her baritone to Dixon who has actively sought to educate the public about Hutchins, and her super-resonant octet violins. The baritone is the sixth instrument in the Hutchins Violin Octet, the violin closest to the cello in size....
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