the rostanvo story

Our search for cello sound perfection

At Rostanvo, we believe all cellists deserve a better sounding instrument. A simple, easy and fair way to improve the sound you make, guaranteed.  We are principled too, committed to a single gauge/tension of strings as we believe the industry standard of 3 tensions benefits no-one other than other manufacturers’ bank balances.  But the help we offer goes beyond creating a great product.  Whether you buy our strings or not we want cellists to better understand strings, their instrument, and how it should be set up, properly!  And so read the articles on our site so you will be the best informed cellists ever.

our founding

Early growth

To Infinity and beyond!

Where Does the Name "Rostanvo" Come From?

In our search for perfection everything we did had a purpose and meaning. Our innovative packaging takes up little space flat packed, needs no glue to assemble and elegantly holds our strings. The colours we chose are taken from the colour palette of cellos and our logo links back to the fundamental material of cellos, wood.

And it is no different with our name. We wanted to draw references from the cello world and so used a combination of the names of 3 of the greatest cellists to create a name deeply rooted to the cello world: Rostropovitch, Starker, and Navarra. They were all outstanding performers and teachers. For Navarra’s name the ending A is replaced with an O to echo the name of the instrument to which we are dedicated.

Stefan Popov

Founder

One of the great cellists of his generation, Stefan Popov’s life has been dedicated to his instrument and teaching of it.  Performer, teacher, and innovator, Stefan Popov’s mastery of the cello is not only recognised from being a multiple prize winner but also from being one of the few cellists to be awarded “Chevalier du Violoncelle” title.

Alex Popov

Director

Alex Popov co-founded Rostanvo along with his father, Stefan Popov.  He is responsible for the day-to-day running of Rostanvo and is the company’s chief “string listener”.  A serial perfectionist himself as well as having previously been a violinist, he used his interest in science and physics to look to help our strings get ever closer to perfection.