Summer is here and we are busy getting ready for the ninth annual Great Wall International Music Academy. This year features concerts at the famous National Center for the Performing Arts and the addition of our piano department in cooperation with the University Mozarteum's Leopold Mozart Institut. We're also looking ahead to next year when we get to celebrate our tenth anniversary in Beijing! But before I head to China, you can find me in Iceland performing with the Sassmannshaus Piano Trio and conducting at the new Harpa International Music Festival in June.

I'd like to share with you this great lecture by David Schoenbaum discussing his book The Violin: A Social History of the World's Most Versatile Instrument. It's a fascinating look at a rich and diverse subject.

I also saw this news about the UK's largest Stradivarius exhibition this summer in Oxford. Unfortunately the exhibit will close just before my trip to Oxford for the 2013 European String Conference, so leave me a comment below if you are able to take it in!