Carla Shapreau is the Curator of the Ansley K. Salz Collection of Stringed Instruments. She brings to this position a background of violin making, restoration, and service as a member and past board member of the International Council of Museum’s Committee of Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music, the non-profit American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, and the Violin Society of America. She is also a member of the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V., Music Working Group on provenance research.
A recipient of a 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a Doctor of Fine Arts (honoris causa) in connection with her research, Shapreau has written and lectured broadly on topics pertaining to instruments of the violin family and other music-related topics, including:
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“Provenance and Instruments of the Violin Family,” in Colonialism, Provenance, and Musical Instrument Collectors, 1850-1940, ed. Christina Linsenmeyer, Routledge Book Series: Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1700-1950. Routledge, New York, 2026
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"The Stolen 1709 Mendelssohn Stradivari Violin Emerges -- Preliminary Report on the 1709 Mendelssohn Stradivari Violin," the Lost Music Project: Publications & Reports, 24 June 2025
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Keynote, "Provenance Due Diligence and Practice: Challenges for Musical Instrument and Music Collections," Proceedings of the 62nd Annual International Council of Museum Music Conference, 30 August - 1 September 2023, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Speelklok Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Paris: ICOM Music 2025
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"Musical Instruments, Provenance Evidence and Public Access," Carla Shapreau and Caroll Lynn Ward-Bamford, Conference on Provenance Research on Musical Instruments, Historisches Museum Basel, Switzerland, 17-18 October 2024
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“Restitution, Restoration and Repertoire: New Findings in the Wanda Landowska and Denise Restout Papers at the Library of Congress," Panel and Performance, Library of Congress, Coolidge Auditorium, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2022
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Keynote speaker, Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, Symposium: "The spoliation of musical instruments in Europe. 1933-1945," Paris, 7-9 April 2022
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“The Nazi-Era Confiscation of Wanda Landowska’s Musical Collection and its Aftermath,” Polin, Studies in Polish Jewry, Vol. 32: Jews in Polish Musical Life, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press, 2020
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“Documenting the Violin Trade in Paris: The Archives of Albert Caressa and Émile Français, 1930-1945,” Carla Shapreau, Christine Laloue, and Jean-Philippe Échard in Collecting & Provenance: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach, eds., Jane Milosch and Nick Pearce, Smithsonian Provenance Research Initiative, Smithsonian Institution and University of Glasgow in association with Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2019
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“Bells in the Cultural Soundscape: Nazi-Era Plunder, Repatriation, and Campanology," in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, Oxford University Press, 2018/2019
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“The Plunder and Restitution of Vg: The Nazi Era and its Aftermath, 1940–9,” The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript, Introductory Study, by Lawrence Earp with Domenic Leo and Carla Shapreau, Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music Publications, Oxford University, 2014 (American Musicological Society Claude V. Palisca Award, 2015)
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Violin Fraud, Deception, Forgery, and Lawsuits in England and America, by Brian W. Harvey and Carla J. Shapreau, Oxford University Press, 1997
In addition, Carla Shapreau is a Continuing Lecturer in the School of Law, where she teaches a course on art and cultural property law, including topics pertaining to collection management. She is also a Senior Fellow in the Institute of European Studies, where she is conducting cultural property research in the field of music.
Her website is Lost Music Project
