Violinist devastated after car containing 'irreplaceable' sheet music is stolen in Bellevue

A violinist is devastated after her car containing ‘irreplaceable’ sheet music was stolen over the weekend in Bellevue.

Amanda Howard-Phillips is a music professor at Eastern Washington University and a member of the Spokane Symphony.

She was accompanying her students to a music conference when she says her car was stolen out of a garage near the Westin Bellevue Hotel.

"It's absolutely heartbreaking and the more I think about it, the more devastated I am," said Howard-Phillips.

She drove her 1994 Honda Civic CX from Spokane on Friday to be with her students, but later discovered her car was missing by Saturday morning.

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As much as she wants the car back, she is desperate for what was left on the passenger seat.

"It was just a couple of books and one manila folder with sheet music in it," said Howard-Phillips.

Compositions by Eugène Ysaÿe and Sergei Prokofiev contained writing and notes from Howard-Phillips' late mentor and teacher, Camilla Wicks.

"They're instructions, they're insights; the view into her musical, artistic process and technique," said Howard-Phillips. "Any musician knows that those notes that they write in the music are absolutely irreplaceable."

Howard-Phillips studied under Wicks at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and is grateful for the experience she had with the internationally renowned violinist.

She hopes anyone who knows where her car or sheet music are can return them or contact the Bellevue Police Department here.