violin
Giovanni Grancino
built in Milan in 1696
A violin built by Giovanni Grancino in Milan in 1696.
Current player
Jeanita Vriens
from Giovanni Grancino
History of this instrument
This Grancino violin was owned by the Residentie Orkest for many years. In 1999, the orchestra offered it for sale to the Musical Instrument Fund for financial reasons, on the condition that the violin would remain available to a violinist from the Residentie Orkest for another ten years. The Musical Instrument Fund undertook a fundraising campaign to purchase the instrument and received support from, among others, the Thérèse Drucker Foundation, the K.F. Hein Fund, and the Countess van Bylandt Foundation, which made the purchase possible. The Music Instrument Fund loaned the violin to Ronald Touw, Momoko Noguchi, Peter Braam, and Lucie te Winkel. In 2005, the Residentie Orkest announced that it was no longer interested in using the Grancino violin. Subsequently, the violin was played by Florin Negreanu, Laie Lee, and Jeanita Vriens.
About the builder Giovanni Grancino
The rise of Milanese violin making began with the Grancino family. Prior to that, the city had no established tradition in the field of violin making. Well past the mid-seventeenth century, their workshop remained the only one of...
