I have the great pleasure of being invited to play with Collegium Musicum, an Early Music ensemble at CGU in April (more details on the performance to follow shortly…). Well, to do so, I needed to purchase a set of gut strings for my Tommy – it would not suit the performance for my brilliant Evah Pirazzi‘s to sing out brighter than the rest of the ensemble’s more mellow gut strings!
Anyway, in my search for the Pirastro Chorda set (Medium gauge) – which my Baroque violin teacher specifically instructed me to purchase, to best accommodate the more modern set-up of my instrument – I first tried my usual search through Woodwind Brasswind‘s collection, but I could not find the specific sizes of Chorda that I needed. So, after some surfing on Google, I was delighted to stumble upon a Minnesota based shop – Quinn Violins. As you can see from the above links, their prices are the best I’ve seen so far! As an example, the only other site I found with these specific strings was Shar, and their pricing was $30 higher than Quinn’s!!!!
Needless to say, that encouraged me to try this shop out! And I’m very glad I did. They were very prompt in sending my strings out to me – I received them, nicely packaged, in only a few days. Though I hadn’t received confirmation that they had shipped, when I emailed to ask for confirmation, they sent a friendly and prompt response to let me know when I could expect them to arrive. I believe I’m going to try purchasing my regular Evah’s from them next! So, kudos to Quinn Violins; keep up the great work! 8)
Sarah,
Hello. Thank you for your kind endorsement of my company. I just wanted to let you know, and anyone that reads this, that we are nearly ready with some enhancements of our website and service, including email notification of shipment.
Until the next opportunity to serve you…Thank you again,
Chris
My pleasure! Thanks for the update, and for all your help! đŸ™‚
It’s funny, I ordered a week ago from them, haven’t gotten my strings, emailed them, and haven’t gotten a reply. I was starting to worry… but your post has left me somewhat relieved although still impatient.
Dear Sarah (if I may)
I lecture at Bangor University, Wales, UK and am currently supervising an M.Phil student on the early works of Penderecki. We have been trying to track down a number of American dissertations (see below). I would value any suggestions you may have of how to access the following theses, short of ordering them through the inter-library loans system (which is costly and takes time). If you have PDF copies of any of these dissertations, or have links with any of the authors you could send to me, that would be great.
Daniel Delisi: Compositional Techniques and the Use of the Chorus in Five Selected Works of Krzysztof Penderecki.
Randolph M Foy: Textural Transformations: The Instrumental Music of Krzysztof Penderecki.
Mikel Andrew Ledee: An Analysis on the ‘First String Quartet’ of Krzysztof Penderecki and an original Composition, Symphony II.
David Howell Linthicum: Penderecki’s Notation: A Critical Evaluation.
Nelson Eugene Mandrell Jr: Compositional Aspects of Two Early Works for String Orchestra by Krzysztof Penderecki.
Thanks and best wishes,
Pwyll