Volunteer Your Talents
If you’ve ever thought about ways to use your string-playing abilities to make a positive impact on your community, the nonprofit DoSomething.org can help. The website is designed to put the power of information in hands of teens. Make a difference.

Watch a Real Hero
Russian violinist, violist, and pedagogue David Oistrakh (1908–74) was one of the most striking figures in the string world in the 20th century. The DVD portrait David Oistrakh: Artiste du Peuple (Medici Arts 3073178) by Bruno Monsaingeon traces Oistrakh’s career, from its inception behind the Iron Curtain, where he languished (from Western ears) in the repressive Stalinist regime, to his late blossoming in the United States, Europe, and Japan. But unlike your run-of-the-mill violin superstar, Oistrakh’s life took on heroic proportions: he famously performed Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in a downtown Stalingrad music hall . . . while the neighborhood was being bombed by the German Luftwaffe.

Read a Master’s Musings
The late, great violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916–99) made an indelible mark on the string world. Menuhin shared his love of the violin, music, and humanity in the 1996 book The Violin (Flammarion, $50), a love letter to the history of the violin. Menuhin’s narrative is paired with spectacular photos and illustrations of musicians and instrument makers, instruments of faraway cultures, and the master himself. A CD of his recordings is also included.