Published in the May (2-8) issue of
The Big Issue.
Sound Business
You’ll find it in
the ‘String’ category, subsection ‘Violin’. Scroll down about halfway and there
it sits. Its current owner, based in Bucharest in Romania, claims it’s a Joseph
Guarnerius from the year 1713. The asking price? Five and a half million Euro.
Quite obviously, even to the uninformed, this is no ordinary instrument.
The same applies
to many of the listings on relatively new website LonelyInstruments.com.
Created by Australian-born musician/entrepreneur Jennen Ngiau-Keng and launched in September last year, LI has become a hub for
people looking to buy and sell new and used instruments all over the world. It
is, essentially, Gumtree for musicians.
“It’s a free global
service,” says Ngiau-Keng, “allowing
musicians to advertise their instruments and buyers to locate them. Our goals
are to help musicians sell their instruments faster, [and] help musicians find their next
instrument by allowing them to search specifically and globally.”
He adds, “There
are no fees to create an ad, and those interested in purchasing would just
contact the seller directly. We don’t make any profit.”
Ngiau-Keng, 31, is a classically trained pianist and
violinist. Since the age of five,
he’s won over a hundred awards and prizes in music competitions,
performed over fifty concertos with orchestras, and has acted as Guest
Concertmaster with orchestras including the West Australian Symphony Orchestra,
Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and the Victorian Opera Orchestra.
He’s performed as a guest principal with the Tasmanian Symphony
Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, and has toured Australia and overseas with the
Australian Chamber Orchestra – he knows the ins and outs, and as such, the idea
for LI came from direct experience.
“The
idea came about because I felt that there was nothing like this in the
classical music world,” concurs Ngiau-Keng,
who also runs a string-quartet booking agency and a business selling
height-increasing shoes for men.
“Having been in the classical music world for much of my life, I was aware of
the frustration amongst fellow musicians in finding a fast, cheap and
convenient way of selling and buying instruments. I felt a concept like LI
makes it much easier for people to sell their instruments.”
Since the site’s
launch in September 2013, it’s grown slowly but surely. Now hosting around 200
ads, it is becoming what its founder envisioned, although as is common in this
day and age, conducting business via the internet isn’t without its perils; the
possibility of fraud is very real (particularly when you’re dealing with
instruments as rare and expensive as are featured on LI).
The site avoids this however, by merely acting as a
middle man, a method many online businesses now use. Buyers contact sellers
direct, and conduct any transactions away from the site, and as such, LI takes
no responsibility for anything that goes wrong.
In the meantime,
among the 200-odd listings on the site are almost any instrument you care to
name. From the commonplace to the extremely rare, it’s a veritable treasure
trove, and not just for classical musicians, although this does seem to be the
focus. There are, for example, only eight electric guitars listed for sale at
time of writing, compared with 66 violins, 24 violas and 16 cellos and
accessories, including a Eugene Sartory violin bow listed at $AU28,000.
Other notable
listings include an unknown brand violin from around 1750, advertised at
$AU10,000; a 2010 Bernard Neumann cello tagged at $AU52,000; a clarinet from
the 1940s; an upright piano from the turn of the last century; along with a
slew of brass, wind, string, percussion and electric instruments.
“We’re just happy
that people are using this service,” says Ngiau-Keng
when asked where he sees it going. “It’s already difficult to get most musicians to be proactive about
selling their old instruments, so for the moment I am just happy that
instruments that would once be put to the back of the closet can be sold and
perhaps allow someone to follow a music career like instruments have done for me.”
At this early
stage, it seems to be a solid idea – an online hub with no monetary commitment
which would appeal to most, if not all, musicians, whether they’ve been playing
for years or are just beginning.
“We had a
1/32 violin for sale on [the site], which has now been sold,” says Ngiau-Keng,
by way of example. “A 1/32 violin is suitable for children aged 12 months, so
this is quite a rare instrument to see for sale. Most professional violinists
start around the age of three to six years old, so 12 months is very young.”
And the
Joseph Guarnerius? “This would
be a copy of a real Guarnerius, but without seeing the instrument, it’s
impossible to know. Whether it’s a copy or not, it may still be a very valuable
instrument. [And] yes, it is the most expensive instrument on [the] website.”
If Jennen Ngiau-Keng has anything to do with it, these
instruments won’t be lonely for much longer.
By Samuel J. Fell
