The Rifleman’s Violin

The Rifleman’s Violin recounts an extraordinary intersection of history and music that took place at the end of WWII when a 19-year-old rifleman named Stuart Canin performed a private concert for President Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Years later, Canin would win the Paganini award, classical violin’s most prestigious prize. He’d become an internationally acclaimed concertmaster for Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, John Williams, but he was never so nervous as when he was summoned from the German front to perform for the Commander in Chief and his guests as they prepared to negotiate the postwar fate of the world.

The Rifleman’s Violin was originally created in 2018 for a live multimedia experience directed by Sam Ball and produced by Abraham D. Sofaer for the Hoover Institution Library and Archives and was an official GIFFSD Selection in 2017. To learn more, visit “Potsdam Revisited: Overture to the Cold War” at http://www.potsdamrevisited.org/

Plays in

Film Pairing: The Rifleman’s Violin & RESCUE MEN: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers

This film pairing brings two unique stories that are often overlooked in the history books. First, The Rifleman’s Violin recounts one GI’s deployment to the German frontwith his rifle and violin on his back during World War II. Second, RESCUE MEN: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers is the story of an all Black lifeguard station that performed many daring rescues from 1880 to the closing of the station in 1947.