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Recently addedBehind the Bow:
How Professional Performers Buy, Sell, and Upgrade Their Fine Instruments.
Our musicians at String Musicians Australia have performed at thousands of weddings, gala dinners, corporate events, and private functions across the country. Whether it’s an outdoor wedding ceremony in the Hunter Valley, a corporate gala in Melbourne, or a rooftop cocktail reception in Sydney, one thing stays constant: the sound of a live string ensemble comes down to the quality of both the performer and their instrument.
Keeping instruments performance-ready is a constant job. A professional violin, viola, cello, or bow needs to sound right in a concert hall and still hold its tone outdoors in the heat, the wind, or the damp. Every classical musician, music student, and freelance performer knows that buying, maintaining, and upgrading gear like this is an ongoing, often expensive, part of the job.
So how do professional string players upgrade their instruments without losing a chunk of the sale to a retailer’s cut? And where should someone turn when it’s time to pass on a well-loved instrument to the next player who needs it?
A musician’s gear keeps changing
An instrument isn’t just wood and wire to the person playing it. It’s part of how they sound. But what a musician needs from their gear shifts a lot over the course of a career.
A student moving from the conservatorium into professional gigging, playing with ensembles like String Musicians Australia, often needs to step up from an intermediate workshop instrument to an antique, master-crafted piece or a well-made contemporary one.
Outdoor performing changes the equation too. Garden receptions, coastal ceremonies, and open-air weddings expose delicate instruments to humidity, direct sun, and swings in temperature, which is why a lot of working string players keep a second instrument, or a carbon-fibre bow built for exactly those conditions, just for outdoor jobs.
And then there’s the gear that just sits there. Years of playing leave most musicians with spare violins, violas, cellos, bows, cases, shoulder rests, and the fractional-size instruments they outgrew as kids. Leaving all of that in a cupboard helps nobody, least of all the students out there hunting for decent pre-loved gear.
Selling an instrument the old way costs more than people realise
When a string player decides to sell a violin, sell a cello, or trade in a bow, they’ve traditionally had two options: consign it through a violin shop, or list it on a generic classifieds site. Neither is great.
A consignment shop knows instruments, but that knowledge comes at a price. Commission on a sale typically runs 20 to 40 per cent of the final price. On a professional violin or cello worth $5,000 to $15,000, that’s thousands of dollars gone, money a musician usually needs for their next upgrade.
Generic online marketplaces skip the commission but bring their own headache: buyers who don’t know what they’re looking at. Sorting through lowball offers, dodgy trade requests, and people who were never serious to begin with eats up time that busy performers don’t have.
ORCHESTRATED: a marketplace built for musicians
ORCHESTRATED was built to fix exactly this: a platform made specifically for musical instruments and gear, where buyers and sellers deal with each other directly instead of through a dealer or an auction house.
Zero commission
List a violin, viola, cello, double bass, or bow, and keep the full amount. Listing costs a one-time $29.95 AUD per listing on an individual account, or $29.95 AUD a month for unlimited listings on a business account. Either way, ORCHESTRATED takes no cut of the sale, so nothing comes off the top.
Musician to musician
There’s no middleman standing between the person selling and the person buying. A parent looking for a pre-loved three-quarter cello for their kid, or a freelance violinist after a vintage German bow, deals directly with the person who actually owns and knows the instrument.
Not just strings
Strings are the focus, but the platform covers the wider music community too: pianos, flutes, brass, percussion, whatever a musician needs to move on or pick up. Because it’s built by and for musicians, the people browsing actually understand maker heritage, wood condition, and tone, not just a price tag.
Keeping Australia’s live music scene going
At String Musicians Australia, we’ve always thought great live music starts with musicians having access to good instruments. Whether that’s our own performers upgrading their gear, or a wedding guest who watched our string quartet and decided to pick up an instrument again, a straightforward way to buy and sell gear keeps the whole thing moving.
If there’s a violin sitting unused in its case, or you’re due for an upgrade before your next big performance, have a look at ORCHESTRATED. List your instruments today and deal directly with the buyer, and the money stays where it belongs: with the person who earned it.
Author
Jennen Ngiau-Keng is the founder of String Musicians Australia and an award-winning violinist based in Melbourne. Trained at the Australian National Academy of Music and holding a Master of Music Studies from the University of Tasmania, Jennen has performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, collaborated with artists like Hans Zimmer and Russell Crowe, and earned over 100 awards across national and international music competitions. He founded String Musicians Australia in 2011, bringing together some of Australia's most distinguished musicians for over 2,000 events nationwide.