“Marik… go practice your violin” ….engraved in my childhood memory. He was born on a calm, summer night with the sounds of Paganini concerto No. 1 on the radio.  His fate was decided – he will be a great violinist!  I was at summer camp and met this new addition to our family when he was already 3 weeks old.  I was twelve and did not know what to make of it at the time. Mark exceeded the expectations of our violinist parents.  He is more than a violinist; he is a visual artist, computer genius and a businessman – he is a Renaissance Man. Mark has a fascinating relationship with the violin – he studies the history of its making, he plays it...

Violin is probably the closest instrument to the human voice.  Violin vibrato makes our inner selves vibrate along with every thought of the musician.  Violin reaches the deepest corners of our beings and makes us cry, makes the hair on the back of our necks stand up and makes us shiver from pure physical pleasure.  The Old Italian violins are surrounded with the mystery of their making; every violin has a soul of its own and plays well only in the hands of a great master.  Sometimes the violin gets compared to a voluptuous woman caressed by a skillful lover. This January, Musical Bridges is participating in the citywide Beethoven festival...

Since I just turned 50, I decided that it is a good time to start my bucket list.  I’m looking at things realistically and ideas like becoming a tall blond, having a few more kids and getting a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris do not seem to be relevant anymore so… out the window they go.  I have always dreamed of learning many languages, but my mind could only do so if my very survival depended on it.  I have studied Italian, French and Spanish, but unless I was parachuted into those countries and left there without English or Russian speakers, there is no hope. During an after-Christmas sale, Rob and I splurged on many great...

Anya, there is a wrong note on the left hand… play it again… It all started with the simple question to my husband – what shall I learn for a HAPPY NEW YEAR video?  It has to be something short, flashy and very, very happy.  “Bumblebee”, Robert said, without thinking twice. “What a fresh idea!” I thought, and engaged on a YouTube journey.  After listening to about 25 different Bumblebees, some in killer arrangements, I found one by Rachmaninov.  And it was love at first site. “Flight of the Bumblebee” is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in...