A CLASSICAL acquaintance e-mails, urging me to go to Google and type in “quint taxi strad”. The result is reams of stuff, she promises, on a man who left his Stradivarius violin in a Newark taxi.
Sure enough: “Russian-born Philippe Quint left the 1723 ‘Ex-Keisewetter’ violin by the legendary luthier Antonio Stradivari in Newark taxi driver Mohammed Khalil’s cab.” The honest Khalil, who returned it, was treated to a free concert, with about 20
0 fellow cabbies.
The Scottish connection is that Quint performs what is for him an intimate concert in St Cecilia’s Hall, on Edinburgh’s Cowgate, early on Wednesday evening. He will play works for solo violin by Bach, Paganini, and John Corigliano’s Red Violin Caprices from the film The Red Violin, which Quint is just releasing as a new album.
Quint is an interesting character. He made his orchestral debut at the age of nine, left Russia for the United States aged 16, and has embraced the music of his adopted country, recording Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade , for example. His French-sounding name is actually Italian in origin.
His mother, Lora Kvint, is one of Russia’s best-known composers, described as her country’s answer to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Judging from his flashy website,
www.philippequint.com, Quint is rather more than a Russian answer to Nicola Benedetti. He’s won big prizes, good reviews in odd places, and a couple of Grammy nominations.
His £2 million violin is on loan to him from a couple of rich patrons. Chances are he’s learned his lesson by now, but Edinburgh taxi drivers should keep their eyes peeled all the same.
Watt to do for lunchA DIFFERENT kind of diary date, this time for a multi-tasking artist. On 13 May, the leading Scottish maritime painter, James Watt, gives a lunch-time talk at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Scottish art historians credit Watt with co-founding the “Glasgow Group” of painters in the late 1950s. He also “co-founded” the painter Alison Watt, who needs no introduction.
Watt ran the art department at St Columba’s Secondary School in Greenock, then the largest in Scotland, taught at Glasgow School of Art for 38 years, was father to four children, including Alison, and still managed to keep painting… phew.
Hear the wurd ay GodA TRANSLATION of the New Testament from the original Greek into the Scots tongue has been released in an audio version. From Wild Goose Publications and the Lorimer Trust, it is voiced by illustrious actor and director Tom Fleming. The translation was first published in 1983, a massive labour of love by Professor William Lorimer and his son RLC Lorimer. “In the beginning o aa things the Wurd wis there ense, and the Wurd bade wi God, and the Wurd wis God.” Could it reverse the slump in church attendance? Well, anything’s worth a try. Four Gospels (12 CDs) for £59.99, ||WEBSTART||www.ionabooks.com||WEBSTART||
The full article contains 517 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
