Dorothea DiGiovanni

Instrument

Violin

What do you do when you’re not playing in the LSO?

I work at Glenmede, as a fiduciary accountant, and volunteer with veterans, and play chamber music and lots of liturgies!

When, or how, did you come to join the orchestra?

After my husband passed away I wanted to become an active player again, and my dream was to be in the Lansdowne Symphony, so I took four years of lessons with Irving Ludwig until he asked me to join!

Do you come from a musical family?

My mother was a piano teacher and all six of us started on piano.  Her childhood friend married a violinist in the Philadelphia Orchestra who generously offered to teach my brother violin.  He ducked out, so I went instead.  I got hooked!!

Does the instrument you play on have a story?

Irving Ludwig prompted me to buy my instrument in 2006.  It was made in 1922 by Ernst Liebich, who won medals in Breslau, Germany.  It was love at first listen, for its smoothness and evenness in low and high registers, so I named it “Melisande,” after a Burt Lancaster movie line from Rainmaker.

Are you originally from Lansdowne/Philadelphia?

I am part of the Italian immigrant story, from South Philadelphia to Havertown!