Ilja Grawert & Son Violinmakers

The 1721 ‘Lady Blunt’, one of the best-preserved Stradivari violins in existence, was sold yesterday in a Tarisio online auction for £9.8m ($15.9m). The figure, which includes the buyer’s premium (the hammer price was £8,750,000), is over four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin. The buyer was an anonymous bidder who won a 90-minute bidding battle with one other bidder.

Lady Blunt Stradivari Violin
All the proceeds from the sale will go to the Nippon Foundation’s Northeastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Kazuko Shiomi, president of the Nippon Music Foundation, which put the ‘Lady Blunt’, one of the treasures of its stringed instrument collection, up for sale, said: ‘While this violin was very important to our collection, the needs of our fellow Japanese people after the March 11 tragedy have proven that we all need to help, in any way we can. The donation will be put to immediate use on the ground in Japan.

Many professional musicians develop shoulder problems, tight muscles in back, arms and neck, as a result of a poor setup; as well as any kind of intonation issues and buzzes, noises etc can be set-up related.

I have been specially trained overseas for 4 years at Geigenbau Machold or what they are now called´Machold Rare Violins´ to setup and restore instruments for performance on the highest level.

Combined with my 28 years of professional experience, I have been serving you the best and most professional, here in Brisbane, when it comes to sound improvement, restoration, repairs, setup or advise about any other violin related matters.

Reasons for muscle tightness and other pains which are instrument related: