“A 19th century violin has been taken out of a collection of historic instruments held by Oxford University and sent to a young Syrian musician living as a refugee,” writes Sean Coughlan on Monday (6/19) at BBC.com (U.K.). “Aboud Kaplo, 14, was forced out of his home in Aleppo and is now living in Lebanon…. Oxford University has now lent the teenager the restored violin. The German-made violin is part of the [university’s] Bate Collection of Musical Instruments [which] can be used by academics, students and researchers…. [It is] the first time an instrument from the collection is going to be lent to a young aspiring refugee musician…. Oxford University found about Aboud from filmmaker and former student of the music faculty Susie Attwood. She had met Aboud and his family [when] she was making a film about Syrian Christian refugees in Lebanon… Aboud … was trying to teach himself using YouTube videos and a ‘rattly’ toy violin…. ‘The violin is … entirely the kind of instrument we would lend to a student here at Oxford,’ said collection curator [Andy] Lamb. Aboud said he ‘cannot express by words how I feel—I’m so happy, so excited.’ ”
Posted June 20, 2017
