Violins and Cigars

Elfenworks Film Celebrates Virtuoso Violinist Aaron Rosand at 80
**Official Selection, Calgary Fringe Film Festival &
   Winner, 2007 Telly Award**

This documentary short from Lauren Speeth and Tim Schaller of Elfenworks Productionsshows well-wishers from far and wide joining to wish the maestro the best on his 80th birthday. See it at youTube.com and (mv4) video here. In it, we note that Rosand has practiced every day from the age of three, which means he has practiced about 150,000 hours, or 9 million minutes and doesn’t use a shoulder rest. But if he says the cigar is the magic behind his tone, we must allow him his opinion.

Curtis Screening

A capacity crowd joined the celebration / tribute concert sponsored by the Curtis Institute of Music. The concert opened with Violins & Cigars. Aaron Rosand played the first half of the concert, and after receiving a standing ovation was presented with a Citation from Mayor John F. Street of the great great City of Philadelphia. Former students then performed for the bulging crowd, which filled every seat and more - people were literally sitting on the stairs. The evening ended with a large birthday cake. A wonderful time was had by all.

Film Festival Selection

Violins & Cigars is an official selection of the Calgary Fringe Film Festival.

Telly Award Winner

Our documentary short has been honored with a Telly Award for outstanding achievement in entertainment. The Telly Awards honor excellence in local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film (and most recently, web) productions. For 28 years, the Telly Awards has recognized the finest in creative work. Since 1978, its mission has been to strengthen the visual arts community by inspiring, promoting, and supporting creativity. Over thirteen thousand entries were received for consideration in the previous year. For more information about the Telly Awards, visit www.tellyawards.com.

About Aaron Rosand

Among the world's outstanding violinists is Aaron Rosand, whose masterful playing has captivated audiences and critics throughout the world. A true violinist's violinist and "one of the great living exponents of Romantic violin music," (New York Times), Rosand has made "some of the greatest recordings of this century" (Gramophone Magazine); recordings lauded by Strad magazine as "synonymous with immaculate technical achievement, beautiful multi-coloured tonal luster, artful phrasing, stylistic elan, and a probing musical intellect."

Rosand carries on two traditions of playing, having studied both with Leon Sametini (a student of Eugene Ysaye) at the Chicago Musical College, and with Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. (a student of Leopold Auer) at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. As Dorothy Richard Starling Chair of Violin Studies at Curtis as well as in master classes throughout the world, Rosand seeks to impart the twin strains embodied in his own playing - the Russian school of Auer and the Ysaye tradition - to a new generation.

A prolific recording and performing artist, Aaron Rosand enjoys an enduring career that has spanned more than six decades. According to Strad magazine, Rosand's technique is "undiminished by the passing years, interpretations honed to perfection by a lifetime of performances. He has always had that ability to make music sound fresh and spontaneous, his tone shaded with a flexible vibrato ideal for Romantic music." For more information, visit the artist's website at www.aaronrosand.com or Video Artists International.

Watch for Violins & Cigars on in HD on Bay Area PBS Channel 9!