$250,000 cello stolen in Seattle

SEATTLE — Seattle Police are currently looking for a cello and bow, worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

It was stolen this week from a local Seattle home, in the Central District.

The cello’s owner, Sarah Rommel, is a nationally renowned musician. She says she is doing everything she can to try to get it back.

“I learned how to speak and communicate through the instrument. And it was much easier for me to express myself that way, than through words,” says Rommel.

But now she’s at a loss, after her prized instrument was stolen. She was out of town when a neighbor called her, reporting that her front door was ajar, and her front window was shattered. She later discovered her cello was taken too. Rommel believes she was targeted.

“Right now, I feel mostly grief. It’s like losing something- someone you love dearly,” says Rommel. “I like to describe it to people who aren’t familiar with that kind of connection through an instrument, that it’s almost like finding your life partner. That’s what finding the right instrument feels like to a musician.”

A life partner that can take musicians several years to find.

“It’s really fortuitous when your cross paths,” says Rommel.

She says that happened to her two years ago, when she found her cello in Boston. It was created in Italy in 1890.

Rommel is scheduled to perform across the country next week. She’s well aware that the show must go on but is struggling to make that happen.

“Right now, my energy can’t be poured into those projects. It has to be poured into retrieving my instrument back,” says Rommel.

She, along with Seattle Police, are asking anyone with any information about the stolen cello to come forward.

©2024 Cox Media Group