The October 15th concert to honor Juliet Shaw featured her own theremin, custom-built for her by the
instrument’s inventor himself, Lev Termen (Leon Theremin). Since Juliet Shaw’s theremin still works,
it on display during the concert and I used it to play Londonderry Air (aka Danny Boy), a song requested
by her daughter, Sandra Shaw Murphy. Juliet herself can be heard playing the song on Track 8 of Music in
the Air – The Artistry of Thereminist Juliet Shaw, Volume 1.

 

Following her very fist performance at Yale University somewhere between 1936 and 1937, she learned that
Theremin lived in New York City. With her own RCA Theremin in tow, she was able to meet him at his
apartments on West 53rd St. (an event she describes in several handwritten accounts as well as in recordings
of some of her live concert performances). Theremin was so impressed with herself-taught virtuosity that he
offered to trade her RCA, with it’s range of two and a half octaves, for a custom built instrument that would
have a range of six and one half octaves. She continued to perform on that instrument for the rest of her life.