By AIMEE GREEN/The Oregonian/OregonLive
World-renowned fiddler Alasdair Fraser’s massive social media campaign paid off – he’s gotten back his violin and bows after a thief stole them from his rental car in Portland last month after performing in the Yachats Celtic Music Festival.
Last week, two people showed up with the stolen items at Southeast Portland’s David Kerr Violin Shop and sold them to the shop. The shop soon identified them as stolen and less than 24 hours later, Fraser was reunited with his beloved violin and four bows. They’re undamaged.
After searching for four days in Portland last month and then flying home to California defeated, Fraser had lost all hope — until an employee at the violin shop gave him a call.
“I’d actually begun looking for something else to play,” Fraser told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday. “I was never going to see these instruments again. You move on. I was grieving. And suddenly to be jolted with this phone call? I was in shock.”
“Fortune was shining upon us,” Fraser added, noting that now he and his musical partner – cellist Natalie Haas – have both recovered the instruments most important to them.
Their tribulations began Nov. 13, when they arrived in Portland after headlining in the Yachats Celtic Music Festival.
Someone broke into their rental car while it was parked near the Multnomah County Central Library, emptying its contents – Fraser’s violin and bows, Haas’ cello, sheet music with precious handwritten notes, various pieces of musical equipment and their luggage and clothes.
The pair recovered Haas’ cello that same day from a stranger who read Haas’ phone number on the case and told her that he’d bought it from a man on the street for $40 but soon had a change of heart.
Haas flew home to Spain, but Fraser stuck around for four more days – tracking down witnesses, talking to police and plastering stolen-items fliers to lamp posts and bike racks.
“It was hard for me to leave,” said Fraser, who lives in the Grass Valley area of California. “I hated to leave with a piece of me missing.”
But before either one of them had flown home, they had stopped by the David Kerr Violin Shop – one of the oldest in the Portland area – to ask staff to be on the lookout for anyone trying to sell their stolen possessions. Twenty-three days later, that effort paid off.
Longtime employee Esther Shim said two people arrived at the shop Wednesday afternoon, saying they’d tried to sell the violin and bows at Trade Up Music but that Trade Up Music referred them to the violin shop given the caliber of the equipment.
Shim said the couple told owner David Kerr that an acquaintance who had been living with them moved out and left the violin and bows behind.
Kerr didn’t initially realize the items belonged to Fraser and believed the story was plausible, Shim said. It’s not unusual for people to sell instruments that they’ve inherited or were passed on to them, she said.
So Kerr cut the couple a check after taking down at least one of their names from their identification.
“After the people left, things moved pretty quickly,” Shim said.
Staff member Andy Emert recognized Fraser’s violin and bows, the store canceled its check, Shim called Fraser and Fraser was up at 5 a.m. the next day to catch a plane to Portland.
By noon Thursday he was standing in the shop, grasping the violin he’s performed with for the past 40 years as he’s traveled around the world, as well as the bows, including a 19th century French one particularly special to him.
Fraser posted about his stroke of luck on Facebook and within hours hundreds of fans and supporters were celebrating the news. “There were a lot of invested people and it’s the kind of good news that a lot of us wanted this year,” Shim said.
Golf clubs that were extremely expensive were stolen from a guest staying at the adobe resort last month also. Please keep your eyes and ears open. Name brand an entire set.