I was pleased recently to be invited by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra to be a violinmaker-in-residence for their 2016-17 season. The VSO has been looking for ways to involve their audience more deeply in the music making process. They thought…
The 15” Cut-Away Viola, Revisited
In the 2006 edition of my newsletter The Scroll, I wrote about an experimental 15” viola model I was developing.
¡Santiago de Cuba!
We traveled to Santiago de Cuba with a group of 21 New England artists & musicians. Of our fellow travelers, more than half are musicians, but our group also included a printmaker, a piano technician, teachers, and a film maker.
Koff Model Violin
Robert Koff offered me encouragement in many forms, one of which was access to and insight into his Vuillaume violin. He played this violin in the Julliard Quartet for several years and he considered it the perfect instrument, with a dark chocolaty quality and plenty of power and punch. Robert’s violin was made in the Paris workshop of Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, probably around 1860.
Maggini 1610 Commission
Until recently, the work of Giovanni Paolo Maggini has not been of great interest to me. Perhaps it is the number of ill-conceived copies I’ve seen that clouded my view. Jack Harris approached me with the idea of building for…
Viola #524, 1789 Storioni
I got to know Kazuko Matsusaka and her viola, attributed to Lorenzo Storioni, thorough our involvement with Yellow Barn and Eric Rosenblith’s summer International Music Institute in Fryeburg, Maine. I had expressed admiration for the simple, straight-forward approach to design…
#695, “Steinhardt” Storioni Violin
My desire to understand what is important in a successful violin has led to special interest in successful instruments that do not follow the usual patterns. Friends in the Guarneri Quartet encouraged me to approach Arnold Steinhardt, first violin in…
#838 “Jackson” Stradivarius 1714 Violin
About this instrument 300th Anniversary Strad Series Antonio Stradivari looms large in the life of any violinmaker working with traditional design and process. How does one deal creatively with this 800-pound gorilla in the room? In order to study, learn…
A Special History: Violin Opus 157
“Ginn” 1691 Long Pattern Strad copy I had built two violins patterned on Marylou Churchill’s very large long pattern Strad before making this violin. One went to one of her students and the other she used as a back-up instrument,…
Early Work: Baroque Violin Opus 11
Baroque Violin #11 This was the first of the violins I built as part of my work for J. Bradley Taylor. Beginning in 1978 I devoted one day a week to making new violins with a separate workshop set up where…