Joe Romersa

Joe Romersa is an American musician, composer, voice actor, and music producer.

Romersa started his career as a drummer, but early on he branched out into sound engineering. As Romersa tells it, "After a tragic early tour I did at age 19 which left me homeless sleeping on a park bench in New Jersey, I had to find a way to make money and still be close to what I love; music."

Romersa later studied sound engineering. Combining his fledgling career as a professional musician with the more stable income of sound engineering allowed Romersa to hone his craft as both a drummer/percussionist and as a sound engineer.

Lisa Batiashvili

Elisabeth Batiashvili (1979), professionally known as Lisa Batiashvili, is a prominent Georgian violinist active across Europe and the United States. A former New York Philharmonic artist-in-residence, she is acclaimed for her "natural elegance, silky sound and the meticulous grace of her articulation".

Batiashvili makes frequent appearances at high-profile international events; she was the violin soloist at the 2018 Nobel Prize concert.

Batiashvili was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to a violinist father and a pianist mother. She began learning violin with her father from age four. The family left Georgia in 1991 when she was 12 years old, and settled in Germany.

She plays a 1739 Guarneri del Gesu violin (Cozio 61377) lent to her from the private collection of an anonymous German collector.

Beech Slats

 A great video to open the new year at The Beret Project:

The roof of the Hermitage was rebuilt with 7,000 beech slats. A craft that required a lot of work and many berets.

Happy New Year!