Girasole !

Opus II is complete, actually has been complete for three weeks or so. I'm playing her at the rate of about 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time 4 days/ week. She sounds great! No soft spots anywhere. It will be a sad day for me when she leaves for her new owner, but a great day for some lucky violinist. I hope whoever buys her knows how to get into her soul, and plays her as much as I am now. What a shame if she sits in a case for days on end after she has known the joy of singing freely. I can't go down that road now, way too depressing. One sure way to prevent that is not to give her away and I have no intention of doing so.

Here are the facts straight away. She is made with some of the finest wood available world wide. She has been meticulously hand crafted over 250 hours, tested many times along the way to insure maximum playability. She is solid but limber, no short cuts taken anywhere. Cosmetically there are imperfections but I like to think that adds personality. Besides none of those things affect the way she sings, and man can she ever sing! As I said in my previous writing her best fit should be someone who is a very serious musician, perhaps not quite a professional but clearly on the way. Or at the very least someone who plays music or loves music as passionately as any young professional violinist. She has a full bodied voice that comes alive when you get into her strings with the bow all the while fervently vibrating them with the left fingers. She certainly can be played timidly with light thin bowing barely glancing atop the strings. And there are many places calling for that in countless musical scores. But her voice is best when the constraints are lifted and one digs into her inner soul to hear what she has to tell.

She certainly is for sale but wont be given away. She is way too beautiful for that.

Her name is Girasole, Italian for "Sunflower". My wife Cathy's passion for growing sunflowers along with the blazing amber varnish on Gira's skin is the inspiration for her name. I told you she would be a tiger!

And lastly thank you Cath for taking some way too cool photos of Gira and me on the beach this past Tuesday. That was a real blast.

Bill