Amati Quartet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Amati Quartet is a Canadian string quartet.
The quartet is associated with the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
The university owns four rare and highly valuable instruments made by 17th-century luthier Nicolo Amati that it loans to the performers of the quartet. The instruments were sold to the university by farmer and collector Steven Kolbinson in 1959 for CND $20,000 and are now worth over CND $3 million.
There has been some controversy over the instruments. They were loaned to the Lafayette String Quartet of the University of Victoria for some time before being returned to the University of Saskatchewan. The instruments are held in storage at the University's Archives and are rarely performed. There has been some debate as to whether the instruments should be more regularly performed upon.
