Violinist Elina Vähälä was performing Bruch’s Violin Concerto when the incident occurred
During her 16 April performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto with the Sinfonia Lahti, violinist Elina Vähälä’s 1780 Guadagnini instrument was knocked out of her hands by the nearby conductor, Matthew Halls. The violin flew up in the air before falling on the ground behind her.
After the initial shock, Vähälä regained her composure, picked the instrument up, tuned it and began the work’s finale from the beginning.
The 1780 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin is valued at approximately £1 million.
In the days following, the violinist posted an update on the condition of her violin, which had since been tended to by luthier Jarkko Niemi.
’My Guadagnini is perfectly fine! And therefore – so am I… There are no cracks or even scratches, nothing is broken. The top was slightly detached from the ribs, which is a safety measure in cases of sudden humidity or pressure changes, preventing cracking. It has been glued back in place.
’Music making with Sinfonia Lahti and conductor Matthew Halls was a tremendous pleasure and inspiration… I am happy that we managed to finish the concerto despite of the scary interruption. The audience was breathing every second with us with full attention! What an evening.’
Born in the US and raised in Finland, Elina Vähälä made her orchestral debut with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra at the age of twelve. She has played with Finland’s major orchestras as well as the Houston Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, among others, and collaborated with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Jakub Hrůša, Sakari Oramo, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and more.
In 2023, she became artistic director of the Naantali Music Festival, having previously been the artistic co-director of the Oulu Music Festival. In 2009 she launched the Violin Academy, a masterclass-based educational project for highly talented young Finnish violinists. She has held professorship positions at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
Read: Obituary: violinist Günter Pichler (1940–2026)
No comments yet