[Dixielandjazz] Audubon String Quartet

[Steve barbone]

Well, nobody made money here but the Lawyers. Hell hath no fury like a
musician scorned. 

Say, maybe it was Kenny G who donated? Or Wiggins? :-) VBG

Cheers,
Steve


2 Musicians in a Legal Dispute Will Keep Their Instruments

NY TIMES By DANIEL J. WAKIN - Published: January 11, 2006

An anonymous donor has stepped forward with $200,000 to help members of the
Audubon String Quartet avoid the loss of their instruments in a legal
dispute with a member they had dismissed, people involved in the case said
yesterday.

The fired member, David Ehrlich, who won a lawsuit and a $611,000 judgment
against the other three quartet members, said in an interview that he had
agreed to accept the payment so that a bankruptcy trustee would not
liquidate the instruments. The agreement was the first stage in a broad
settlement that lawyers for each side are trying to work out.

"Why am I settling at this point?" Mr. Ehrlich said. "It's bothersome to me.
I don't want them to lose every little thing that they had. If they can come
out of this with something, then I would feel better about it too." He has
said he never wanted the other members to lose their instruments but needed
the funds from the judgment to pay lawyers. Mr. Ehrlich said the other side
waged a "vicious" campaign of legal delays to force his legal fees to mount.

Mr. Ehrlich, the first violinist, was banished from the quartet in February
2000 after years of tension. He sued the other members - Akemi Takayama,
second violinist; Doris Lederer, violist; and Clyde Shaw, cellist, the only
founding member left in the quartet, which was formed in 1974 and based for
20 years at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. After years of bitter legal
battles, Mr. Ehrlich won the judgment, and the other members filed for
bankruptcy.

The case and its rivers of bad blood have become notorious in classical
music circles, and a paradigm for what can go wrong in the intense,
endlessly subtle world of a chamber group.

"Saving our instruments from liquidation was certainly the No. 1 thing on
our minds," Mr. Shaw said. But his home and other assets remain threatened,
he said, to pay the rest of a settlement. Mr. Shaw said Mr. Ehrlich was not
acting out of benevolence, but was trying to recover his reputation.

"If Mr. Ehrlich was so altruistic in his philosophy, in his character," he
said, "then I don't think it ever would have gone to this stage."

Ms. Takayama is engaged in a separate battle over her violin. Mr. Shaw and
Ms. Lederer - who are married - had a Dec. 23 deadline to hand over their
instruments. After news articles brought the deadline to attention, the two
sides began serious settlement negotiations, and the handover day was
repeatedly extended. The parties have faulted each other for failing to
respond to settlement proposals throughout the litigation.

Howard Beck, a lawyer for Mr. Shaw and Ms. Lederer, said the anonymous
donor's money would allow the instruments to stay in the hands of his
clients. He said the terms of the arrangement were not yet fixed but could
involve the purchase of the instruments, which would then be lent back to
Mr. Shaw and Ms. Lederer. Mr. Shaw declined to discuss the donor.

The cello is an 1887 Eugenio Degani, but more precious, Mr. Shaw has said,
is his 1860 bow, a Nicolaus Kittel. The viola is a 1915 Ferruccio Varagnolo.

Mr. Beck said the two sides were close to reaching an overall agreement. "It
would settle the whole mess and we'd be out of here," he said.

The road opened up in part when Mr. Ehrlich dropped a demand that the others
write a letter acknowledging they had wronged him. "Nobody would believe
they really meant it," he said. "It would even create worse feelings toward
me." He said that with interest, the judgment had reached $760,000, and that
the settlement would be "not even close" to that amount.