JAVS Spring 2010

M ODERN M AKERS C ATCH A R ISING S TAR

art. Originally known as the Kenneth Warren & Son School of Violin Making, the school was the second such in the United States. Warren, a noted connoisseur of instruments, had previously repre sented W. E. Hill and Sons in London and had worked in restoration at the Wurlitzer firm in Chicago. Although he founded his own firm in Chicago, and was a member of the International Entente, he was the only member who had never actually made a violin. He founded the school in spite of that and quickly hired a stellar fac ulty, led by Tschu Ho Lee, a luthi er known for violas, who had worked with the important maker Joseph Kantuscher in Germany. In 1983, the eighty-four-year-old Warren passed the reign of the school to Lee, who renamed it the Chicago School of Violin Making. The school incorporated as a not for-profit institution in 2002 and is run by co-directors Rebecca Elliott and Fredric Thompson and an independent board of directors. As the students progress through their three-year course at the school, they are guided through the making of three violins and a viola, which may be made in one of several models. One is a 15 3/4 inch Guadagnini-inspired design, well suited to players with smaller

A student works on a scroll at the Chicago School of Violin Making (all pho tos courtesy of Anthony J. Elia)

by Eric Chapman

therefore does not have a high price point. These makers of tomorrow are studying at the nation’s schools of violin making today. There are several noted schools of violin making in the United States, among them the Violin Making School of America in Salt Lake City, the North Bennet Street School in Boston, and the largest, the Chicago School of Violin Making, located in Skokie, Illinois. These schools train aspiring mak ers in the initial and very crucial foundations of the craft. The Chicago School was founded in 1975 by the late Kenneth Warren. It is a reflection of his life long commitment to the luthier’s V OLUME 26 NUMBER 1 57

Here’s a riddle: what do a surgeon, a sculptor, and a bass player have in common? Answer: they have all been violin-making students at the Chicago School of Violin Making, and they have all made exquisite and affordable violas. In these hard economic times, vio lists are all on the hunt for bar gains. You know what I mean— that magical viola that doesn’t cost the earth but sounds as though it came from the studio of Stradivari; the $3,000 model that sounds like a million. There is a way to achieve this dream: catch a wonderful maker on the way up who is under the tutelage of a master but has not yet made a reputation and