Strings Magazine

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Photo: Emmett McPartlin By Lily O'Brien | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings So you've decided to forgo performing at a music festival in favor of attending one for fun. The pressure is off, and you can just sit back, relax, and take it all in-without lifting a finger (or a bow). There are, of course, innumerable music festivals from which to choose, but perhaps you have a particular special interest in mind. String quartets only? No problem. Early music?

Isidore String Quartet: Adrian Steele, left, Devin Moore, Phoenix Avalon, and Joshua McClendon, Photo: Jiyang Chen By Greg Cahill | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings There is a lively, joyful quality to the Isidore String Quartet's website-sections delineated in unexpected angles, a photo with each member perplexedly contemplating an instrument that is not his own, a video introducing the ensemble-perhaps reflecting its connection to the veteran Juilliard Quartet's approach to...

Scott LaFaro, Courtesy of Helene LaFaro-Hernández By David Templeton | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings Every musical instrument has a history. Some of those histories are more interesting than others. Many are lost to time. In the case of the 200-year-old double bass known to many as the "Scott LaFaro"-and sometimes the "LaFaro-Prescott"-the backstory is a little of both.

Giuseppe Tartini, Courtesy of Tartini House/Wikipedia By Mary Nemet | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), the greatest violinist of his age, continued and developed the traditions of his equally famous predecessor Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), leaving modern day violinists an immense legacy.

Gregory Walker. Image courtesy Michael O'Neill Generative AI has seemingly come of age. AIVA's Music Generator can create its own orchestra music, Splice Sounds' plug-ins compensate artists whose works are used for training, and 34 to 44 percent of the music uploaded to Spotify is now fully AI-generated. This technology has its fans.

Courtesy of D'Addario By Emily Wright | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings Let's say you've designed a product, and it can, for the purposes of argument, be made from any material in the world: natural, synthetic, some hybrid. Let's also say you care about the environment and want to factor that into the production choices you make. Petrochemicals are out, so plastics are the first thing you exclude.

Counterclockwise from top: Pittsburgh Symphony(George Lange); Simon Woods(Douglas Carter); Mark Volpe(Marco Borggreve); Steven Libman(Chad Dennis) By Laurence Vittes | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings As the country's orchestras continue to emerge from the shadow of Covid, recent announcements of fiscal health by a range of North American orchestras-and the Arts & Culture Benchmark report from the League of American Orchestras in collaboration with TRG Arts-indicate that recovery...

Violinist Sadie Sheldon's trio with composer Wenbin Lyu, Photo: Courtesy of Elemental Music By Cliff Hall | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings On a warm spring afternoon late last April, a group of teenage musicians gathered in Santa Monica to premiere newly commissioned works for which they had no recordings to lean on and no performance history to imitate.

Clockwise from top left: Wouter Vossen (Courtesy of residentie Orkest); Robyn Bollinger; Kirill Troussov; David Kim (Photo: Allie Sklar) By Laurence Vittes | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings Even if we were not heading into the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death in 2027, the first-ever performances of Missa Solemnis in 2026 by two of today's most celebrated conductors would be remarkable events.

Michael Klein Music Tent, Aspen Music Festival, Photo: Aspen Music Festival By Cliff Hall | From the March/April 2026 issue of Strings A violinist finishes a phrase. After the final cadence, but before the applause, there is something else: wind moving through grass, over stone, across open land. Somewhere beyond the stage, a bird calls. The sound doesn't compete with the music; it settles around it. Moments like this linger.