Constantin Popescu practices on a double bass at his business in Westport, Conn. The Romanian born Popescu specializes in selling, repairing and restoring fine string instruments.
(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WESTPORT, Conn.— There’s a violin for sale at Atelier Constantin Popescu that won’t be playing second fiddle any time soon.
“It’s a Stradivarius,” said Constantin Popescu, the mild-mannered and soft-spoken violin repairman and instrument dealer who owns the shop on Davenport Avenue in Westport, near the train station. “It is for sale for $2.5 million,” he said quietly, as if the other violins, cellos, violas and double basses might be intimidated by their high-end neighbor.....
....The violin business has been good to the Romanian-born and European-trained bassist and luthier, who defected from his Communist country to the United States in 1989, just before the democratic revolution that swept through the Iron Curtain.
He had first come to the U.S. as a bassist, in an orchestra, in 1983 and decided like so many other Europeans who visit America that this is where he wanted to be.
He will mark his 20th year in the U.S. next year, and is deep in the process of building a new store in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich to accommodate his growing customer base.
“I’m doing a lot of work, building shelves,” he said. He already operates two shops, the one in Westport and another in Old Greenwich. They are places where he works with his hands, but in a more delicate way......
....There are enough classical orchestras, schools of music and private students in the southern Connecticut/New York corridor to keep his services in demand.
“I am still fascinated by this country,” he said. “The way the people think. And it is different from north and south, east and west.”
He is even at peace with pop music. “I love all kinds of music, classical, pop,” Popescu said.
He holds out an independently made CD of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra from 1999, when he was the featured double bassist. “The bass is like the human voice,” he had said in an interview at the time, when talking about his beloved instrument.....
....Popescu is valuable to the stringed instrument community because he can help at times like that, said Spring Berv of Stamford, assistant concertmaster with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra.
“The work he does is very important for artists and students,” Berv said.
Popescu prides himself on his personal service, even offering his customers cups of espresso topped with froth. “Not everyone is going to play Carnegie Hall, be at that level,” he said philosophically. “But even so, it is a good experience.”
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