Mandolin News from around the world

After a long day, I browsed through my favorite sites and here is a summary of interesting mandolin news from around the world.

It seems that Brexit drama is unfolding and it is time to touch the arts. The head of the German Cultural Council, Olaf Zimmermann, has said that artists’ freedom of movement will be impaired by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. So think twice if you are planning a concert in the UK, as after Brexit:

EU artists will need a visa to live in London, that will inhibit cultural exchanges.
Collaborations between museums, arts centres and theatres will suffer.
Withdrawal of EU funding programs will kill off many joint projects in the future.

Staying in UK , the ancient Roman town of Bath, which depends on heritage tourism and I love visiting, has said it will scrap all funding for the arts in order to save £433,000 by 2020. That will probably spell the end of the Bath Festival.

Moving to Canada, a 131-year old mandolin is returned to rightful owner, which is a 90-year-old woman! According to musiccrowns, the mandolin had been passed on to her from family and had links to Finland and Italy. While dining in a restaurant it appears someone stole it, however, there were no reports of it being found initially. It was obviously very important for it to be returned to her so she contacted the police to see if it could be located. A happy-end occured when someone contacted the police to notify them that they found an old mandolin!

Mandolin news from Singapore now; The MANdolin & Beyond, an annual tribute to the Late Maestro Padma Shri U.Shrinivas who was regarded as the Mozart of classical Indian music is about to take place. Hurry for your tickets! The tribute was started in 2016, to honor Shrinivas who pioneered the introduction of the Mandolin, a western instrument, into Classical Carnatic music that has become synonymous to his name. Mandolin Shrinivas, the rarest of musical geniuses, embodied the change that stretched beyond time and boundaries, fusing Indian classical music with other forms of world music.

Going back to USA, we read that Nashville is lucky to announce the forthcoming opening of a new museum. The gift of nearly 500 historically significant instruments and supporting endowment—amounting to a total value of approximately $10.5 million—comes from the estate of the late Steven Kern Shaw. To showcase the collection, Belmont Announced a New Interactive Vintage Instrument Museum to Open Spring 2017. Shaw was a collector, philanthropist and the grandson of Broadway composer Jerome Kern who was one of America’s foremost composers of musical theater and popular music (responsible for such classic songs as “Ol’ Man River,” “The Way You Look Tonight” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”). The Shaw collection consists primarily of iconic 20^th century American-made guitars and mandolins, including:

Six Gibson F-5 mandolins signed by Gibson’s acoustic engineer Lloyd Loar made in 1922-24. Loar-signed F-5s are considered by many to be the finest mandolins ever made.
Two sunburst finish Gibson Les Paul Standard guitars made between mid-1958-60. Considered by many collectors to be the finest solid body electric guitars ever made.
Seven extremely rare F-5 mandolins with fern pattern peghead inlay made from 1925 through the mid-1930s.