Alexander Ross, President of A. Cavallo Violins, LLC has a unique set of experiences and developed abilities that give the customers of A. Cavallo Violins a finer experience than at other shops. With its wide range of services and highly trained staff, A. Cavallo Violins provides Omaha and their international clientele a one of a kind place to purchase and service fine handmade stringed instruments.
Interview with David Schwartzman
DS: Dr. Ross, how did you come from a teaching and performing career and become a violin dealer?
AR: After teaching for 25 years, I left academia to perform for one year with the Omaha Symphony, teaching several students in my spare time. Through my students, I recognized the need to provide young musicians with a challenging environment and quality instruction. My goal was to raise the standards of music education and performance in the Midwest. This ideal inspired a donor, advisors, and me to start the Omaha Conservatory of Music in 1998. A year later, I started A Cavallo violins out of my home to serve the students of the Conservatory.
Q: So, if the shop started in your home, how long did it take to move into a commercial location?
A: We moved in 2000 to the lower level of the conservatory’s building at 105th and Pacific. In 2002, we moved our operation to Countryside Village.
Q: How is your shop different than other places customers can get a violin from locally or on line?
A: A. Cavallo Violins is much more than a typical violin shop. The shop offers full repair and restoration services, appraisal, and conservation. We have a full trade program and warranty everything we sell. We have low prices because we are very selective with our suppliers and makers, ensuring quality and price that is unrivalled.
Q: What are you goals for A. Cavallo Violins
A: Our vision for A. Cavallo is to assist string players of all levels by focusing on carefully selected instruments of living makers, giving the customer the convenience and security of a professional shop experience, individualized excellent service, and a broad selection. Because of my connections, the shop is able to acquire and focus on primarily new making, through the great workshops and masters of today.
Q: How can customers get in touch with you?
A: The shop is conveniently available through the retail location with generous open hours, our website, and other e-commerce venues. We provide a comprehensive selection of accessories that are carefully chosen for value and dependability.
Q: How did you end up in Omaha and in the music profession?
A: I am originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and began playing the violin at the age of four. My undergraduate education was at the University of Michigan, where I studied violin performance with Paul Makanowitzsky, Gustave Roseels and Jacob Krachmalnick and graduated with honors. I went to graduate school at Yale for three years with Paul Kantor as my primary teacher, and during that time I was hired as a part time instructor. I subsequently spent 9 years at the University of Georgia, where I eventually became an associate professor. My Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance and Pedagogy was earned from the University of Iowa where I studied with Leopold LaFosse. I have also studied with the concertmasters of the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony and held concertmaster positions in Connecticut, Iowa, Michigan, and Indiana. I have performed solo and as a chamber musician in the United States, Europe, and Asia and released several commercially successful compact disc recordings.
During that time I was actively involved in the brokering of fine instruments, and spent countless hours with my students finding appropriate and excellent instruments for them.
Q: Does your pedagogical and performance background affect A. Cavallo violins
A: The availability of my highly trained staff and the diversity of the inventory that makes our shop unique. We deal with our customers on an individual basis. You are going to see one of our experts when you walk through the door. That is where we are so distinctively different – you can speak to our workshop staff who have trained in repair and restoration with such masters as Guy Rabut, Stephanie Voss, and Jerry Pasewicz, and also have degrees in performance on their instruments. Or you can speak to our sales staff that are active teachers and have degrees in performance and business administration. All the knowledge here is first hand and you can look at violins from over 20 countries here!
Q: How do you get such quality and price?
A: We are unique in the selection of high quality products. A. Cavallo Violins is a boutique buyer – purchasing our products straight from the manufacturer one at a time. We take a lot of pride in the quality of instruments offered and are constantly searching for the best product for our customers and students. Each instrument here is handmade and they are all unique.”
Article from March 2009
The fittest fiddle isn't always the oldest or costliest
BY JOHN PITCHER
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
William Wolcott has performed on multimillion-dollar antique violins and on contemporary instruments worth just a few thousand dollars.
Alex Ross, owner of A. Cavallo Violins, said the violins in his show range in price from about $3,000 to $65,000.
Which ones sound best?
"I actually prefer the new violins," said Wolcott, a violin professor at the Omaha Conservatory of Music. "The notion that old violins sound better than new ones is a total myth."
Wolcott was at A. Cavallo Violins recently, trying out some of today's finest fiddles in anticipation of a new exhibit at the business.
The show, called "The Art of Sound," features more than 100 contemporary violins and violas from the world's top makers. Instruments have come from across the United States, Canada and Europe. There are even a few fiddles from China.
But unlike the antique violins of the legendary 18th-century Italian craftsmen Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu — whose instruments can cost as much as $7 million — the best contemporary fiddles rarely run more than $50,000.
Alex Ross, owner of A. Cavallo, said the violins in his show range in price from about $3,000 to $65,000.
"One of the main reasons I'm holding this exhibit is to educate the public about these instruments," Ross said. "I want people to see that world-class violins are being built today and that they don't cost anywhere near a million dollars."
Ross has long been a fixture in the Omaha violin scene. A former violin professor at the University of Georgia, Ross moved to Omaha in 1998 to play in the Omaha Symphony. He founded the Omaha Conservatory of Music in 1999. He opened A. Cavallo Violins in 2000 after realizing that his students were having trouble finding quality instruments in Omaha.
These days, Ross works full time at A. Cavallo, located near 87th and Pacific Streets. His shop does some restoration and repair work, but for the most part Ross works as a dealer. He held one prior exhibit, in 2006.
It takes months to arrange an international violin exhibit, in part because "a lot of top makers don't get the concept of deadlines," Ross said. All the same, a major show keeps Ross in contact with many of the world's top craftsmen.
One of those is Stephanie Voss, an internationally renowned violinmaker who will give a presentation at A. Cavallo on Saturday.
Voss, a master builder who received advanced training at the Violin Making School in Mittenwald, Germany, says the quality of violin making has improved exponentially since the 1990s. That progress, she said, is a product of the information age.
"There is now a much greater exchange of ideas among makers around the world," Voss said. "There's been more research, and there are more international meetings to spread the knowledge around."
One thing that hasn't changed since Stradivari's day, though, is that the best violins continue to be handmade, Ross said.
"Every block of wood has a different density and character, and only individual attention can shape it into a perfectly sounding violin," Ross said. "You can't mass produce that kind of work."
Makers use different kinds of wood for different parts of the violin. Spruce is used for the violin's top, and maple is used for the back, neck and scroll.
Craftsmen may spend 15 hours carving a violin's top. An assembly-line machine, on the other hand, will spit out a top in a few seconds. "But the speed of the machine heats the wood, and that changes the acoustic," Ross said.
Handmade violins usually have multiple coats of varnish, which make the instruments harder and more resonant. Factory-produced instruments will usually have one sprayed-on coat of varnish.
Voss, who runs her own violin shop in Atlanta, says it takes her between four and six painstaking weeks to craft a violin. Once a violin is finished, it can take a couple of years for the varnish on the exterior to settle and harden into its final form.
"The most profound changes in a violin's sound take place during the first couple of years after the varnish is applied," Voss said. "A truly great violin is going to sound great within a few years, not 300 years."
That said, the legendary masters Stradivari (1644-1737) and Guarneri (1698-1744) did create some of history's most beautifully proportioned — and gorgeous sounding — instruments.
It's no surprise, then, that many of today's top makers have modeled their violins after those of Stradivari and Guarneri.
"Oh, my gosh, that looks like 'Il Cannone,'" Wolcott said as he was handed a new violin by Dimitri Dimitrov.
A Denver-based violinmaker, Dimitrov modeled his instrument after the 1743 Guarneri. Legendary 19th-century composer and violinist Nicolo Paganini owned the real "Il Cannone," which he called "my cannon" because of its power and resonance.
Wolcott put Dimitrov's violin through its paces, tossing off one of Paganini's fiendishly difficult solo caprices.
"That's really powerful," Wolcott said. "That violin has guts."
Next, Wolcott tried one of Luca Salvadori's violins. Salvadori works out of Cremona, Italy, the same city where Stradivari created his masterpieces.
Salvadori borrowed heavily from Stradivari to craft his violin. His instrument features the beautifully rounded F-holes that are a Stradivarius trademark. The sound is bright and silvery.
"This violin will mellow out in a couple of years and sound a lot warmer," Wolcott said.
Most of the violins in the A. Cavallo exhibit are brand new.
All the same, many of today's top makers understand the appeal of old violins. And so a few of the exhibit's instruments have been altered to look like antiques.
"Some makers will throw sand at their instruments, or do other things to simulate wear and tear," Ross said.
One of the most spectacular of these aged instruments is a Joseph Grubaugh violin. A California-based maker, Grubaugh created a Guarneri facsimile. The body of Grubaugh's violin features the same blunt corners as a Guarneri. Its varnish looks slightly worn. And its sound, in Wolcott's words, is "beefy," just like a Guarneri.
"This guy knew what he was doing," Wolcott said. "This violin looks and sounds like the real thing."