Thurmond Knight
Maker of Violins, Violas and Cellos

Movie Star: "Bethany Violin!"

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MOVIE STAR!

One of Thurmond's violins, Bethany, stars prominently in the 1999 video "Covered Bridges of New England," produced by Fritz Wetherbee for PBS. As the program opens, viewers are told Thurmond made the violin using wood from the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge.  What follows is a beautiful serenade on Bethany, played by violinist Victoria Kehler of Concord, NH.  Victoria teaches violin and viola at the Concord Community Music School in New Hampshire. 

The Bethany violin, named in honor of Thurmond's wife, Bethany Greeley Knight, was commissioned in 1990 by Leo Maslan, of Cornish, NH, as an anniversary gift for his wife Kathleen.    The violin was presented in 1990 as a surprise gift after an unsuspecting Kathleen was treated to a concert on the Bethany violin by Drusilla Macy, staged at an intimate dinner at a Hartland, Vermont restaurant.  Kathleen graciously loaned Bethany to Victoria for the "Covered Bridges" production.

 

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Here Leo is presenting the violin to Kathleen, seated, while Thurmond and violinist Drusilla Macy of Barre, Vermont look on.

Thurmond used red spruce from the Windsor-Cornish Covered Bridge for construction of Bethany's top, bass bar and sound post.  Leo Maslan, a forester and covered bridge restorer, found out about Thurmond's cache of bridge timbers, and commissioned the violin to be made using wood from the bridge that was near and dear to Leo's heart. 

 

Thurmond's Bridge Collection of instruments are made
with 134 year old spruce beams taken from the original covered bridge spanning the Connecticut River, between Windsor, Vermont and Cornish, New Hampshire. The bridge was restored in the late 1980s.

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The 50 minute Covered Bridges video was produced at the Center for Educational Media in Portland, Maine, by eleventh generation Yankee Fritz Wetherbee.  He writes, "...this is more than a program about covered bridges.   It is a love letter told through all the seasons.  About a time when hand-made was the only way people did things."

Victoria Kehler received a bachelor's degree in violin performance from Boston University where she was the Albert Spalding Scholar and recipient of School of Fine Arts Performance Award.  A student of Dorothy Delay and George Neikrug, she is Concertmaster of the Granite State Symphony Orchestra, and won the Herbert Butler Award for Outstanding Soloist.  Victoria has been recorded on several CDs, including Acadia, and she participates in chamber music and solo recitals throughout New England.

 

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