Cremona opens its doors to the world. This is the spirit with which the Stradivari Foundation has launched the “friends of Stradivari” project, an international network bringing together people who possess, use or keep in custody instruments of the Cremonese classical violin making tradition, as well as people who study them, love them or just want to support the promotion and development of the violin making tradition from a cultural standpoint. As a result, a true virtual community is developing, which shares the same passion for violin making but is also very much fond of Cremona. Indeed, participants can actively participate in the Foundation’s initiatives by sharing ideas and suggestions or through the organization of opportunities for reciprocal collaboration. Within this program, the Foundation has started a project to house important classical-school instruments from all over the world in new Museo del Violino.

Cremona, which five centuries ago was the cradle of instrument making and today is an undisputed center of excellence, offers the owners of these masterpieces the possibility to display them with every guarantee of security and professionalism. This way, instruments that would otherwise not be accessible to the public can be viewed, admired and studied by the expert and qualified visitors who come to Cremona from the world over, retracing the footsteps of the great Masters. Furthermore, the Museum renew itself over time and become more and more attractive, and the central role of Cremona in the violin making world will be reinforced.

The privilege of owning a work of art finds its highest expression in the ethical choice of the share. Within the project “friends of Stradivari”, in collaboration with the Museum of the City Stradivari of Cremona, was promoted to a project of “hospitality” of important historical instruments of the Cremonese violin making belonging to private collections. Among the first to join the project, the heirs of Sau Wing Lam and Si-Hon-Ma. So you are associated with The Henry Ford Museum and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Cremona, a world center of violin making, to the holders of these instruments provides the opportunity, with all the guarantees of safety and professionalism appropriate, to exhibit in the prestigious national museum masterpieces normally barred to the public, so they can be admired, studied, exploited and appreciated by visitors experienced and qualified as those who attend the city and the museum dedicated to violin making.