A few weeks ago I talked to a guy who's been extremely lucky twice.

How's that I'm Frank?

Hey Frank, how's it going?

Okay.

Frank Amund is a professional violinist in Wisconsin. He was a concert master for the Milwaukee Symphony for 25 years.

He also performs in chamber ensembles and has made a number of recordings. I'd reached out to

Amund because he plays a stratovarius violin. It's nicknamed the Lipinski

a tribute to one of its many previous owners and it's worth nearly six million

dollars. The Strut is just gorgeous. It's like this Lamborghini sitting there.

The music in this episode is from a series of albums that Amund recorded, called a violin's life.

The series is inspired by the history of the Lipinski.

It was made in 1715, which is sort of dead in the middle of what most people consider a stratovary's quote unquote golden period, where he was really at the height of his powers.

When you're playing an instrument like that, do you sort of feel the weight of the history in your hands?

I certainly did with the Lipinski from the second I got it, because it was so well documented.

It really was like a novel. So many famous people and figures in history

were associated in one way or another with this violin. How exactly did the

Lipinski end up in Amman's hands? It started with a mysterious email 16 years ago.

It was like, we have this instrument and it's part of an estate situation and we're looking for advice on what to do with it.

It was, you know, a one paragraph thing.

And I mean, all of us get these things a couple times a year I found my stratovary at a garage hill or you know it's been in my family for 25 years and it's got a stratovary label on it so it must be a stratovary and 99% of the time

it doesn't work out for them.

This time it did.

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