Brooklyn bassoonist's $50,000 instrument stolen: 'I felt heartbroken'

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) –  You can’t really put a price tag on what a musical instrument means to a professional musician.

To Sara Schoenbeck, her stolen bassoon was like losing a family member; she just wants her back.

“When you acquire an instrument, it becomes your livelihood, your companion, your family member,” Schoenbeck, a professional bassoonist, told PIX11 News.

For 15 years, Sara Schoenbeck had been searching for the perfect bassoon to play in concerts nationwide. She thought she had found it in a 50,000 Heckel bassoon she has since been playing for more than a decade.

“The minute I played this instrument, there was just a world of sound, and it elevated my playing,” Schoenbeck said.

But last Saturday, the 52-year-old teacher at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music was dropping off some donated instruments for an outreach program for children in East New York when she left her car unlocked outside the conservatory for, she says, just two minutes.

When she returned, the bassoon was gone.

 “I immediately called the police. No one knew what a bassoon was, but when I told them how much it was worth, it became more serious and was called grand larceny,” Schoenbeck told PIX11 News.

The surveillance video shows an older man in a white shirt, cap, and beard crossing Seventh Avenue, carrying the teal-colored case with the instrument inside.

 “It’s amazing that anyone would do that,” Sean Moran, a guitarist and guitar teacher at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, told PIX11 News. “I felt heartbroken for Sara. You spend your whole life learning to play an instrument, and you can finally afford the one you really want,” he added.

Sara’s friends in the music community have come together to help Sara, posting $500 reward flyers and checking social media and pawn shops, but so far, there has been no bassoon.

“I understand that he thought he was going to make money off my bassoon, but the value to him is so little compared to the value to me,” Schoenbeck said.

The bassoonist says she doesn’t care if the thief is ever charged with a crime. She wants her instrument dropped off at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. No questions asked.