Cristian Fatu

At nine or ten he played the Bériot concerto, as every violin student in Romania played the Bériot concerto. Last July, in a church in Saanen, somebody handed him a violin they said had been Charles de Bériot’s own — and he played Morricone on it, and dedicated it to someone he loves.

He is Romanian-born, trained in Bucharest and Cologne, and has lived in Los Angeles since 2019: teaching in Orange County, recording film scores at Capitol, Fox and Warner Brothers, playing with the Pacific Symphony and for LA Ballet. Before that, four years leading the Montclaire String Quartet in West Virginia and a violin concerto premiere at the Kennedy Center. He plays two modern violins, made in 2018 and 2019, and goes every summer to sit with scientists and makers and take string instruments apart. A great violin, he says, is a Formula 1 car. Not a relic — a tool.