Bras, travel woes, Olympian string players, and the end of TwoSet Violin: The Strad 2024 news round-up

BRA-vo! Ray Chen receives an unexpected gift from an audience member

We often associate concert-goers throwing their undergarments at performers onstage at rock concerts, but how about at classical concerts? Back in January, violinist Ray Chen had just finished a performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård, when an audience member hurled a black bra at him from the upper gallery.

’I just got thrown my first bra,’ he said on social media following the even. ’If only I could tell my 13-year-old self: If you practise hard enough and sound good, people will throw themselves (and their underwear) at you.’

String players and sports

2024 was the year of the Paris Olympics, which provided plenty of interest from those viewing the event through the lens of a string player or luthier. Instruments of the French National Orchestra got totally drenched in the rain-soaked opening ceremony, witnessed by countless viewers in horror through knitted fingers.

The violin-cello brothers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon played a hugely prominent part in the Olympic celebrations with a performance on Bastille Day at l’Hôtel de Ville in Paris in front of the Olympic lantern. Both brothers were selected to bear the Olympic flame torch on its journey from Greece to France, with Gautier even completing the ’Marathon Pour Tous’ which followed the same route as the Olympic marathon.

And while the parallels between tennis playing and string playing have been drawn for many years, this year saw the violin cross into public consciousness as star tennis player Novak Djokovic chose to mimic violin playing in his post-match celebratory gesture. It garnered plenty of curiosity from viewers at Wimbledon, who wondered why the Serbian player was opting to put his racquet under his chin while drawing an imaginary bow over it towards his players’ box.

’My daughter Tara has been playing the violin for some time, six months,’ revealed the 24-time Grand Slam winner. ’It was our agreement that I would celebrate like that.’

Weeks later, following his long-awaited run to the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, Djokovic had the chance to try out a real stringed instrument, when he met Julian Rachlin and Sarah McElravy while on holiday in Croatia. In a video that swept the string-playing and tennis worlds, we saw Novak ‘playing’ McElravy’s 1785 Lorenzo Storioni viola, accompanied by Rachlin on the violin.

Flying with a stringed instrument continues to be a nightmare

We saw numerous string players suffer travel misfortunes while attempting to board planes with their precious instruments. Violinist Esther Abrami was forced to rebook a flight on her way to a recording session in Berlin, saying she experienced ‘rudeness and humiliation’ as she attempted to board a Ryanair flight with her Vuillaume violin. Weeks later, double bassist Valentina Ciardelli said Ryanair staff ’shouted without any respect’ at her as she queried the airline’s luggage policies. The neurodivergent musician experienced rudeness and confusion from staff, despite displaying her Hidden Disabilities Sunflower card.

Cellists continued to face delays and missed flights, due to arbitrary decisions from various airlines. Maja Bogdanović and her family were barred from their initially booked flight with KLM on the way to the Belgrade Music Festival, while Sophie Kauer’s was told her cello was ’no longer welcome to travel’ on a Swiss Air flight, despite having booked a separate ticket for the instrument in advance. And most recently as this month, Sheku Kanneh-Mason was kicked off an Air Canada flight, forcing him and his sister Isata to miss a performance at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

What can be done in these situations? These artists are accustomed to travelling often with their instruments, which must be brought into the cabin due to their extraordinary value and fragility. While the artists travel without incidence in most cases, the fact that many are met with resistance from airline staff numerous times per year suggest that there are discrepancies between airline instrument airline policy and information available that is acted upon by airline staff.

Unlucky cellist gets her 1733 Gofriller stolen for the second time

It’s fair to say that getting your precious instrument stolen once is horrifying, but twice?

Ophélie Gaillard’s 1737 Goffriller cello was first stolen from her in 2018 at knifepoint in Paris. She recovered her instrument and bows a few days later when the thief decided to return it following broad media coverage of the missing cello, which was worth €1.3 million.

Six years later, Gaillard was the victim of a home burglary, when the same cello, plus bows by Nicolas Maire and Jean-Marie Persoit, and various pieces of art, were stolen from her home in the middle of the night on 24 September.

This story does have a happy ending however - police recovered her instrument and bows after arresting three suspects from the Annecy region. ’I can breathe again,’ Gaillard said after the reunion, following two months of uncertainty and playing a different instrument.

The end of TwoSet Violin??

Brett Yang and Eddy Chen of the hugely popular violin comedy duo caused seismic shockwaves throughout the classical music world in October, when they announced via social media they were calling an end to their creative output after eleven years. The announcement was met with confusion and skepticism in the way it was presented suddenly, with the majority of the duo’s videos and posts removed from YouTube and Instagram.

Fans came up with plenty of theories with what was happening behind the scenes, when finally in early December, the duo teased its B²TSM rebrand. The pair confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that they were finished with TwoSet Violin, though would likely continue to work together. As part of their farewell, Yang and Chen plan to release six videos in which they play members of K-pop inspired band, B²TSM (which stands for Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Mozart).

Those were just some of the memorable stories from 2024 - what were headlines stuck out in your mind? Leave us a comment below, or write to thestrad@thestrad.com.