Forty years ago, twelve-year-old me got a brand-new viola from the great luthier (and now friend) Hiroshi Iizuka! 

Hiroshi Iizuka in his Narberth studio

Scott and Maria in New Orleans

It took me a long time to name her, but…

Hiroshi Iizuka, luthier

Here are some interesting ‘stolen instrument’ stories from our friend and luthier Hiroshi Iizuka (scroll down):

Over the years, my instruments have had several exciting “adventures”.

Four violas were lost or stolen, one “destroyed in a fire”,…

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

One of my favorite pieces is Hector Berlioz' Harold in Italy, a tone poem for solo viola and orchestra. Having grown up in Hunterdon and Somerset counties in north-central New Jersey, I got to play 'Harold' with…

Scott had his first performance here in England! It was at the Newcastle City Library on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. Here are a few pictures and videos from the recital.

VIDEOS: 

For 3 complete pieces, watch this video:

For a…

1520's and 1620's: Doubling Choirs

During the first 200 years of the viola's existence, it was doing mostly what it was invented to do: doubling vocal parts. Now, more than 500 years later, many believe the viola is still the…

Originally posted on 1/3/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to being the American Viola Society's artist in residence for the next couple of months. I'm supposed to write a new blog post…

from an earlier post:

As a young teenager, I wrote orchestral music that was performed in my home state of New Jersey by the Philharmonic of New Jersey, the Hunterdon Symphony, the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and the Brunswick Symphony…

Originally posted on 2/28/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Classical musicians and audiences often see things differently. In my experience, audiences love the viola. These are people who (probably in most cases) didn't attend conservatory to study an…

Originally posted on 2/21/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

It was around a decade ago that I first heard about the possibility of taking viola lessons via Skype. Once I thought about it a bit and saw the…

Originally posted on 2/14/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

I have spent a bit of time in different musical worlds, and I've noticed that those who primarily spend time in only one or two of them tend to…

Originally posted on 2/7/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Although the viola is the greatest instrument of all time (it says so in the Book of Cremonus), I'm actually not a Viola Separatist. (Sorry.) That is to say…

Originally posted on 1/31/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

People seem to like an agreed-upon authority to magnify their already pre-existing opinions. 

Whether cherry-picking from the Constitution or the bible, it's not merely their own little opinion now---…

Originally posted on 1/24/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

According to polls I've seen over at violinist.com, approximately 80 percent of people use shoulder rests, and based on my own observations, I'd say of the 20 percent who…

Originally posted on 1/17/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Every civilization needs a history. Often the details of that (hi)story turn out not to be true, but that's not the point. 

The point of this post is.... Cremonus…