SA philanthropist Ulrike Klein completes her $6.1 million instrument project

SOUTH Australian philanthropist Ulrike Klein didn’t expect her quest to raise more than six million dollars for a set of rare quartet instruments to end with a doctor who could sing.

DREAM COME TRUE: Philanthropist Ulrike Klein and donor Dr Rabin Bhandari with the Australian String Quartet’s Sharon Draper and Stephen King and their Guadagnini instruments. Picture: TAIT SCHMAAL.

ADELAIDE philanthropist Ulrike Klein didn’t expect her quest to raise more than six million dollars for a set of rare quartet instruments to end with a doctor who could sing.

But on Sunday Klein received a call to say rehabilitation physician Dr Rabin Bhandari, who treated Klein after her hip replacement operation at Burnside Hospital in October, had donated the final $25,000 towards her eight-year, $6,183,188 dream to fund two violins, a cello and a viola made by the 18th century Italian master craftsman Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. It is the only set of its kind in the world.

“It’s the biggest Christmas present to have someone like Rabin as part of this legacy,” Klein said. “We share a passion for music, it’s just beautiful.”

Dr Bhandari, 32, studied classical singing in Sydney and considered making it his career before turning to medicine.

He said Klein was struggling post-operatively with low blood pressure when he first saw her.

“I asked her what her passions were, she said music,” he said. “Miraculously, her blood pressure started going up.”

Klein, who co-founded the Jurlique skin care company, gave $3 million to the project and set the end of 2017 to complete it. The instruments - now on loan to Adelaide’s Australian String Quartet - will be held by Ukaria, a not for profit cultural organisation, for Australia’s musicians in perpetuity.