I totally forgot I'd ever recorded this testimonial! I was browsing the website of my brilliant friend Shehada Shalalda, the Palestinian luthier, and came across this video from 2018.

We'd been filming a series of concerts of Beethoven's 9th Symphony ('Ode to Joy'), which the Ramallah Orchestra was performing across Palestine.

Over the course of a decade, thanks to Ramzi Aburedwan and Al Kamandjati, the orchestra had played a symphony every year ... and in 2018, it was finally time to complete the cycle.

Shehada kindly lent me his latest violin to play for the concerts, and WOW. I've never witnessed a violin-maker improve that much in a year or two. I fell in love with the instrument straight away.

As good as my word, I eloped with the violin (I promised to sell it in Europe and signed a sales contract in Arabic that I *definitely* nearly understood) ... in fact, it's sitting here in London with me right now. Ahem.

It's been my Box Of Choice for all sorts of soundtracks in recent years, from that Ed Sheeran track to the BBC and ITV documentaries I recorded last year, and god knows what else.

Just don't tell Shehada I still have it - hopefully he won't see this blog post ... 😉