This violin is a gift!
For children in under-served communities across the world, it’s a lifeline
A path towards excellence and a gateway to possibilities beyond imagination
The latest technologies meet the art of Stradivari and 500 years of violin-making tradition
Upcycled materials transform into conservatory-quality instruments in the hands of recipients
It will touch the lives of thousands.
OUR STORY
OUR STORY
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
In the 1990’s, Robert Brewer Young was a violin maker’s apprentice in the studios above Carnegie Hall. He offered free bow rehairs and instrument repairs to blind musicians playing on the streets and subways of New York. Aware of the importance of music for community life, he expanded his assistance to various music programs around the city, breathing a new life into their broken instruments. When a flood in East Harlem damaged instruments in Robert Gasparri’s music program, he helped to recover and restore them. Gasparri’s students would later perform on those instruments in Carnegie Hall with Isaac Stern.
Charitable support was then provided to the Blind School in Calcutta and musicians in Sarajevo who were performing throughout a time of war. By organising international donations of instruments, strings, and fittings for players performing in harsh conditions, Robert realised that a simple gesture like collecting strings from violin shops and sending boxes of supplies to these destinations had an impact which was transformative for a community.
The Open String, Inc. was established in New York in 2014 as a US 501(c)3 non-profit organisation.
In Argentina, The Open String, Inc. supported the Orchestra Ludueña, where over 150 children living in an underprivileged neighbourhood make music together. In San Francisco, it supported three thriving music programs for the children of recent immigrants of Central and South America. In the Philippines, donations of supplies and instruments were combined with an instrument repair course.
The Open String USA is a registered non-profit 510(c)3 organization. We have given permission for a new organisation 'The Open String UK' to be established in the United Kingdom. This charity will have a particular focus on empowering communities to build their own instruments in a sustainable way.
Through the work we have undertaken since our establishment we have a depth of knowledge, experience and industry contacts that we will share with The Open String UK in order to further their charitable work.
The Open String UK is an entirely separate organisation with financial independence and a separate governing constitution. While the two organisations will frequently collaborate and communicate in order to best fulfil their charitable objectives, they are not a single entity.
