the times | Thursday December 3 2020 1GM 29
News
Belgrade, Mr Marinkovic said: “I’m not
an expert in violins, I’m an expert in
playing them. It is how much I value the
sound. I said my opinion was that the
sound of that violin is far superior toA professional band claim to have been
dropped from the BBC’s Strictly Come
Dancing spin-off after asking to be paid.
The Italian group Amaraterra had
been approached by producers about
performing on Strictly — It Takes Two
on BBC Two to accompany the
professional dancers Nadiya Bychkova
and Graziano Di Prima.
However, the band say that after they
inquired about payment for the day’s
work they were offered a free lunch and
promised that the appearance would
raise their profile on social media.
“We just don’t have money in the
budget to pay for contributors,” one of
the producers wrote in an email
released by the band. “Hopefully, when
things return back to normal, and the
arts is final[ly] restored, taking part in
this for such a great show will be of
benefit to you.”
Cassandre Balosso-Bardin, a
member of Amaraterra, said that the
There will be strictly no
payment, BBC told band
group persisted in their request but
were later told by the BBC that the pro-
posed appearance would not go ahead.
“The days of ‘it’ll give you exposure’
are over,” Ms Balosso-Bardin told The
Guardian. “What exposure? For what?
We won’t get any gigs these days and we
won’t sell any albums as we have none
to sell, not being able to afford its pro-
duction. They want us and our expert-
ise but they won’t pay for it.”
The musician said that many mem-
bers of her band were furloughed or on
universal credit. “Like all other musi-
cians, our gigs have been cancelled
since March. We haven’t raised the
funds to be able to produce our latest
album,” she added.
The BBC insisted that “editorial rea-
sons” were behind the decision not to
proceed with the performance, and
blamed a miscommunication for the
suggestion that the band would not
have been paid. A spokesman said: “Had
they performed they would, of course,
have been paid for their appearance.”Matthew Moore Media Correspondent
A music teacher who is suing a re-
nowned musician over an £80,000
violin has claimed that he tried to buy
the instrument with cash hidden inside
a piano.
Ruzica West, 38, was given a Landolfi
violin by her grandmother in 2002 and
decided to sell it in 2015.
Mateja Marinkovic, a concert violin-
ist and associate of the Royal Academy
of Music, offered to buy the instrument
for £40,000 and its bow for £20,000. He
had known Ms West for years, having
taught her when she was a student at
the Purcell School for musically gifted
children in Hertfordshire.
Ms West, from east London, stopped
the sale when the professor said that
she would need to go to Belgrade to
collect the cash. She claimed he said
that the money was hidden in a piano.
The pair are engaged in a dispute in
the High Court, with Ms West accusing
Musician ‘tried to buy violin with cash stuffed in piano’
Mr Marinkovic of misleading her when
he finally bought the violin in 2016. The
court was told yesterday that the violin,
which was valued at £80,000 for insur-
ance, was made by Carlo Ferdinando
Landolfi, an Italian craftsman, in the
same league as Antonio Stradivari.
Ms West, a teacher, singer and violin-
ist, decided to sell it because she needed
to pay for medical treatment. The
family went to Mr Marinkovic in the
hope that he would offer a better price
than could be achieved at auction.
“We agreed on a price, but the means
of payment [going to Belgrade] were
not what I would expect from a profes-
sor,” she told Ian Avent, the judge.
She withdrew the sale but offered the
violin to Mr Marinkovic again the next
year. Ms West accepted £40,000 in
total, including £26,000 in cash plus the
proceeds of the sale of a 19th-century
French violin.
Ms West and Olgica, her mother,
then learnt from an expert that themarket value of the French violin was
only £1,500 to £2,000. “I didn’t think
Mateja Marinkovic would do anything
to harm us and eventually we realised
that that was the case,” Olgica West told
the court.
Mr Marinkovic denies that he owes
an additional payment. He insists that
he had not suggested a monetary value
for the French violin, but as a profes-
sional musician he valued its sound as
worth “over £12,000”. Peter Daniels, for
Ms West, said it was clear in a message
from Mr Marinkovic to the Wests that
he suggested the French violin was
worth more than £12,000.
Giving evidence remotely from£12,000.” Judge Avent said, however:
“They didn’t want a nice violin that was
well-tuned and played nice songs, they
wanted the hard cash.”
Mr Marinkovic said that he had not
agreed a deal worth £40,000. He said
that it had always been £26,000 cash,
with a gift of the French violin, to which
no value was ascribed. “I was doing it to
help them. They asked for £40,000. I
didn’t have the money. After huge pres-
sure, I made an offer of what I could
give. The deal was £26,000, plus the
French violin. The French violin didn’t
have any material value in the deal.”
The judge reserved his decision until
a later date.Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
Ruzica West claims Mateja Marinkovic
short-changed her in the eventual saleIN THE TIMES TOMORROW
MOVE AND
IMPROVE
The real cost of a
renovation project
PULLOUTBRICKS&MORTAR
ARTS SPORT
BUY YOUR OWN
BANKSY
Art for Christmas—
in every
price range
TIMES2MATT
DICKINSON
What football’s chief
lawmaker thinks
about VAR hysteria
MAIN PAPERCOMMENT
Gerard Baker Biden’s brave new world
MAIN PAPER