The Violin Channel recently had the opportunity to learn more about the newest addition to the Pirastro Evah Pirazzi family, the Evah Pirazzi Neo violin string set.

In this interview, hear from Dutch violinist Janine Jansen and Pirastro's Technical Director, Adrian Müller, who collaborated on producing this new string set.

 

 

Janine, can you tell us about your collaboration with Pirastro? What did you enjoy most about helping to create the new Evah Pirazzi Neo violin string set? 

I have played Pirastro strings for many years. After getting to know Adrian Mueller, the Technical Director at Pirastro, I was happy to be asked to help develop a new set of strings. After a period of testing different options and explaining to Adrian what I was looking for in terms of sound projection and durability, I feel very excited about the end result. It was a fun and rewarding search together with the team at Pirastro.

 

How do you take care of your strings? 

I always make sure, after concerts and practice, to carefully clean my beautiful 1715 Stradivarius, as well as the strings, with a cloth.

 

Adrian, can you tell us about the new Evah Pirazzi Neo string set and its main characteristics?

Evah Pirazzi Neo strings open up new horizons for modern synthetic strings and their production. Their sound is focused, radiant, and powerful, and blends easily to create almost any tone color that a violinist can imagine. From a practical standpoint, they feel great under the fingers from the start, have even further improved tuning stability in comparison to other strings, and therefore are fully ready to play on the same day they’re installed.

 

How is it similar and how does it differ from other sets in the legendary Evah Pirazzi family?

As stated, Evah Pirazzi, Evah Pirazzi Gold, and now Evah Pirazzi Neo belong in a family; our newest set is neither a follower nor a subsidiary of the others. These sets are each versatile and capable of great expression, and work especially well when matched to the right instrument and musician. Evah Pirazzi Neo was designed to have the full power of our most soloistic strings and a wealth of color possibilities, but with tonal clarity and ease of response in the foreground of its development. Evah Pirazzi Gold strings emphasize the violin’s warmer and darker qualities. Our original Evah Pirazzi strings are rich in overtones, including a strong background of deep tone colors, which increases the projection of their sound. With the addition of Evah Pirazzi Neo, this string family has everything to offer to an instrument’s sound characteristics as well as to the player’s personal taste.

 

Why did you pick Janine Jansen to develop this string set?

The question is not why we picked Janine Jansen, but rather how the collaboration with her started. Keeping close contact with musicians is our key to developing great strings, and so I had already met with Janine several times in the past to listen to her fabulous playing and to enjoy an exchange of ideas. She had played for a while on Evah Pirazzi and then Evah Pirazzi Gold. After switching to a new violin, she had the feeling that there was just not a perfectly matching G-string for the instrument. We tested various combinations from our product lines, and after a while, decided to simply start working on a new string. This was so successful in bringing out her violin’s naturally beautiful sound that we just kept going and eventually ended up with an entirely new set. Janine’s feedback was incredibly valuable through every step of the development process. By adapting to change and welcoming her excellent ideas we adopted a new combination of materials and production processes that we had previously never attempted.

 

 

For which players and violins are the strings best suited for?

Evah Pirazzi Neo strings were created with high-level players, professionals, and soloists in mind, but are nonetheless an excellent choice for anyone looking to optimize the sound and expressive capability of their instrument. They are also wonderful for beginners, since they hold their tuning well and feel effortless to play.

 

What are you most proud of in the development of those strings?

We are, of course, most proud of our collaboration with Janine Jansen, who initially sparked the inspiration for the development of Evah Pirazzi Neo and then remained invested in the project until we had a final product.

On the technical side, we are proud of the achievements of our engineering team. At Pirastro, we build all of our own machines, which are exclusive to our own production. Because we do not rely on other companies in this way, we can bring any idea that we have to life relatively quickly. With the development of Evah Pirazzi Neo, we started with the idea of a special material combination mixed with a new winding technique, which we were able to immediately test, analyze, and compare with other strings.

Another point of pride is that our team was able to create this powerful, soloistic string without the need for a high string tension.

 

 

To learn more about the new Pirastro Evah Pirazzi Neo strings, follow this link.