Exploring 2025 NAMM Show's Offerings for Violin and Stringed Instruments

By Laurie Niles: The NAMM Show - the annual gathering of the National Association of Music Merchants took place in Southern California last Tuesday through Saturday, with some 60,000+ attendees, plus more than 4,000 exhibitors from all over the world. While skies were clear at the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday, the event took place against the inevitable backdrop of the recent devastation that the area has suffered with multiple major wildfires. Aware of this, the NAMM organization committed $50,000 to provide needs-based assistance to NAMM members, employees of NAMM member companies, music education programs, and music makers affected by the January 2025 fires. They are accepting additional contributions HERE.) Turning to the content at NAMM: lot of the show is geared toward audio technology, "video content creation" and a new fascination with AI - here is my favorite example, from a press release from the Tokyo-based company Dreamtronics: "Specializing in AI generative singers...our cutting-edge technology enables the creation of virtual vocalists capable of producing realistic and expressive singing performances..." AI-generated virtual vocalists? Probably not my cup of tea. As an old-fashioned violinist - one who uses her own human fallible body, limited brainpower and roller-coaster emotions to create music primarily on an acoustic violin, I gravitated toward the merchants dedicated to the art of bowed strings (acoustic or electric) during the time I was there on Friday. Fortunately I found some cool innovations and new or developing products that did spark my enthusiasm. When I arrived, I headed first to the area reserved for German exhibitors, where I found Ed Mingo and Annette Muller-Zierach from Pirastro. Ed is based in New York; Annette in Frankfurt, Germany, where Pirastro has its headquarters. Pirastro makes all kinds of wonderful strings that we know and love - Evah Pirazzis, Perpetuals (I'm a new fan of these), Gold Label, Obligato, Passione, Tonica... the list goes on. And they make the KorfkerRest (and the newer and slightly less expensive KorfkerRest Luna) for violin and viola, the premium shoulder rests which are becoming more and more popular as people discover their light weight, tonal qualities and trustworthiness in terms of never falling off the instrument. The news from Pirastro: this year marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Evah Pirazzi strings. More enticingly - Annette and Ed told me that Berent Korfker is at work again, inventing something new. Berent, of course, is the father of that wonderful shoulder rest. What is the new invention? They would not tell me - they would only tell me it is not another shoulder rest, and it is not strings - and it will be revealed in June. Until then! On to Connolly and Thomastik-Infeld, makers of many popular strings such as Thomastik Dominants and Rondos as well as newer strings like Dynamos and Dominant Pros. First they showed me a nice new website (CLICK HERE to see it) that shows pictures of all their endorsing artists - Hilary Hahn, Ray Chen, Christian Tetzlaff, Sirena Huang to name a few. Click on each picture and it will tell you which strings they use. Thomastik-Infeld had new product that captured my interest: the Thomastik-Infeld Rosin, a two-sided rosin for violin, viola and cello (bass soon to come) with a "regular" and "booster" side. My first question: "Regular, Booster, Huh?" Very roughly - and the Thomastik folks will not like it when I describe it this way: it translates to having light and dark rosin, compatible and all in one. The idea is to solve a problem I can relate to: sometimes I feel my bow needs "dark" rosin, and sometimes it needs "light" rosin, so I have two cakes. The "light" is a little more dense and gives it more edge or bite. The "dark" is softer and has a mellowing, warming effect. Of course any rosin maker will tell you - never mix rosins, as different formulations will affect each other, possibly causing clumping and other problems. In other words, my habit of switching between two entirely different rosins by different companies is not ideal and likely causes problems. For this new rosin, Thomastik Infeld teamed up with the Australian-based Leatherwood Bespoke rosin - Andrew Baker's premium rosin company. The two rosins that sit side-by-side for Thomastik Infeld Rosin are different, but related in their formulation, so they will pair harmoniously, without interfering with one another. Representatives at Thomastik Infeld told me they want to get away from the "dark" and "light" terminology for rosin, and understandably. Some companies actually dye their rosins to make them look dark, and the rosin's color appearance is not necessarily a proper indicator of its composition and qualities. But in describing this rosin to my colleagues, they are boggled by the idea of a "regular" with a "booster," but they immediately understand when I say, "It's light and dark rosin, all in one package, so you can switch around the formulation when you need to." BELOW: Connolly's Joshua Pedersen explains how to use the new Thomastik Infeld Rosin: Thomastik-Infeld also was promoting its new Peter Infeld cello strings, named after the company's late CEO Peter Infeld, an art-loving opera buff who ran the Vienna-based company from 1994 until his death in 2009. Joshua Pedersen talks about the strings: I also dropped by the side-by-side booths for Larsen Strings and Glasser NY. We talked about Larsen's Il Cannone strings, which are available for violin - used, in fact, by Anne Akiko Meyers, but especially popular for cello. Petersen told me something that I didn't actually know about the 10k gold, which is present in the D and G Il Cannone Gold violin strings. While it pushes the price for the set over $400, "the gold is very durable, so the life cycle is longer, compared to silver strings," Petersen said. "They will last four to six times longer than a normal set - it will give you a lot of music for a long time." On to Yamaha, whose exhibits took up the entire third floor of the convention center. Back in 2016 Yamaha put the violin front and center when it introduced its then-new Yamaha Electric Violin - the YEV. Over the last year - in August 2024 - Yamaha introduced an upgrade to that instrument, called the YEV Pro. Yamaha's Nicole Lamphier described the new features: As she explained, the YEV Pro has a standard spruce wood for the top and maple for the back, with a maple neck. They also added an "acoustic chamber" on the inside of the instrument, hollowing it out so that the player can feel more resonance coming through the instrument itself. It has a different pickup style that allows the bridge to vibrate more freely. The bridge has also undergone "acoustic resonance enhancement," an artificial "aging" of the wood to make it more resonant. They've also added Wittner pegs - so easy to use! Of course, it simply would not be NAMM, if I didn't wind up with an electric fiddle under my chin at some point - here I am with the YEV Pro - sorry no video this time! You might also like:

• Exploring 2024 NAMM Show's Offerings for Violin and Stringed Instruments
• Exploring 2023 NAMM Show's Offerings for Violin and Stringed Instruments
• Back in Anaheim: Scenes from the NAMM Show 2022

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