Having a famous violin-maker for a stepfather and a mother responsible for building the family violin business into a respected international company, Juliana Farha was bound to follow family tradition. However, the Canadian entrepreneur has given her company a 21st-century twist and last month launched the online classical music community dilettantemusic.com.
After leaving the University of Toronto, Farha worked as a journalist for CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, before editing Watch, a Toronto-based youth culture magazine. But a trip to the Frankfurt Music Festival in 1997 inspired a career change. “My stepfather was the Czech violin-maker Joseph Kun,” she says. “He devised a very comfortable shoulder rest for violin players and my mother asked me to join the company after he had passed away. I agreed and became head of marketing and product development.”
Farha stayed with the company for seven years before arriving in London in 2005 to take a masters degree at Goldsmiths College in Art Administration, after which she developed her business idea.
“I want Dilettante to be so much more than a social networking site,” she says. “I’m thrilled to be able to offer classical musicians and music lovers the chance to connect with each other.” One of the highlights of the site are the webcasts that feature young ensembles. “I’d love the site to be as useful for young classical musicians as MySpace is for young popular music musicians,” she says.
Dilettante caters for all classical music fans, from the novice to the connoisseur. The site is supported by All Media Guide (AMG), the musical archive that offers expert editorial content via articles and reviews. “I think it’s important to be able to offer members some substantial editorial content and AMG helps us to do that.” she says. “The most exciting aspect for me, though, is that people from all over the world are using the site to form relationships through a mutual love of classical music.”