My Violin Journey

Growing up in 60’s and 70’s in Toronto, my interest in classical music was first kindled by my

wonderfully supportive but non-musician parents who frequently lulled my childhood self to sleep with recordings of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert and more.  A neighbour had played violin as a child and lent me all of his recordings of concertos by Paganini, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, played by Kogan, Menuhin and Oistrakh.    After I was able read music, this drove me to the Music library, compelled to sign out music for the Mendelssohn E minor concerto and Sauret Cadenza for the Paganini Concerto No.1. It just seemed impossible that anyone could play such beautiful, incredibly complex things…it was like magic!  I was hooked on the violin for life!

Learning violin early in public school, I eagerly added private lessons with violist Paul Armin, sibling of the famous Armin Quartet family, and then studied with Patrick Burroughs and enjoyed several incredible years in his Bach Youth Ensemble, along with David Perry, Doug McNabney, Janice Bing-Wo, and Joseph Curtin.  (These names will recur below).

I then studied with the elderly, eccentric, but fascinating Maurice Solway, who, along with Joseph Gingold and Nathan Milstein, was a student of the great Belgian virtuoso, Eugene Ysäye.   I began playing local and national competitions and chamber music very seriously.   But along came university and my second passion: Engineering Physics.   I still played some master classes, chamber music and radio gigs at Queen’s University, but essentially stopped playing violin after I graduated; marriage, life, work and children consumed me for the next 18 years.  

My father, Harry, was not only a Civil Engineer, but also a skilled furniture maker among many talents.  He taught me to use power and hand tools for woodworking.   Years later, I became a professional engineer specializing in aerodynamics and acoustics.   Eventually, the serendipitous accumulation of wood working, acoustics, vibration physics, and violin playing all came together when my wife bought me a gift of a subscription to “Strad Magazine”.   This glossy magazine of the string instrument world introducing me to the history of violins, the lineage of all the famous makers, the science and craft of violinmaking.  I looked at this and thought “I can do this!”.   And so, I was hooked AGAIN on violins, but this time as a maker.

In 1998, I attended an inspiring course on musical instrument making at the Ontario College of Art and Design, run by local luthier Phil Davis…and was in heaven, and so thankful to Phil for his years’ long mentoring!   As my first violin, I chose to make one patterned after one of the most famous violins ever: Nicolo Paganini’s “Cannon” Guarnerius Del Gesu of 1742.   I researched the history of that violin, and all violins of the Golden Period in Cremona, Italy, and just loved converting planks of wood into the sculptures that are violins.  It still amazes me that the techniques luthiers use today are virtually unchanged since the emergence of the modern violin form by Andrea Amati in the 1500s!

After finishing this first violin, I attended an international conference on varnishing in Puerto Rico, and on acoustics in Washington state.   At that acoustics conference, I made a point to meet one of the world’s leading violin makers and researchers, and MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Joseph Curtin.  I went into a room and saw a fellow who played viola briefly with me in the Bach Youth Ensemble at U of T years earlier.   Lo and behold it was Joe Curtin (I had not known his name years ago nor of the coincidence)!  I have been privileged to benefit from his teaching and research and inspiration ever since.

At this point, my strong urge to play returned. I called up Jacques Israelievitch, Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony, who, over 3 years, helped and inspired me to rebuild my playing technique.   That led to regular chamber music and solo amateur performances with the Koffler Chamber Orchestra, at retirement homes, long term care facilities and participating in intense chamber music retreats at Toronto Summer Music Festival (where Doug McNabney was the Artistic Direct), in Bennington Vermont, and Stanford University (our Smetana trio performance link is here.), with coaching from The St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Gryphon Trio, Tim Ying of the Ying Quartet, and so many other inspiring musicians.  

I set up my workshop in my house and absorbed and applied the engineering and luthier techniques used by Joe Curtin, Sam Zygmuntowicz, Martin Schleske and so many others.   I proceeded to make and perform on several models based on violins by Stradivarius, Guarnerius Del Gesu, and Carlo Bergonzi, including instruments for David Perry, former Concertmaster of the Sapporo Symphony and now violinist in Belgium, and Janice Bing-Wo, violinist and teacher in Switzerland…both of whom I met years earlier in the Bach Youth Ensemble.

One of the most serendipitous and exciting trajectories of my violin life began at the 2014 Indianapolis Violin Competition, jointly held with the Violin Society of America competition.  Joe Curtin introduced me to Dr. Claudia Fritz.   Claudia, Joseph, and Dr. Fan Tao, were conducting double-blind scientific comparisons of multi-million-dollar Stradivarius, Guarnerius and other Cremonese instruments against the best of modern makers (with the identity of all instruments kept hidden).   There were 21 violinists, competitors, and people like me, playing and commenting on many pairs of unidentified instruments.  It was a once in a lifetime experience to play these amazing instruments!

The results were very controversial: notwithstanding the prior reputation of Cremonese instruments as magically better than all other instruments,  virtually no players could tell old instruments from new, and that the best new instruments at $15,000-$50,000 were judged on par and often preferred over instruments valued at $1,000,000-$5,000,000!!   This led to a firestorm of controversy internationally online and in print, with so many saying the results just could not be true…they must be flawed. Two further, much more elaborate experiments were then run.   Although not inviting controversy, I wrote detailed responses to numerous online critiques. All or parts of my responses were picked up by Norman Labrecht’s “SlippedDisc” blog,  National Geographic, the Atlantic Monthly and others.  As a result, I was eventually interviewed, along with Joe Curtin and violinist Joshua Bell, on US NPR, Bloomberg Planet Money!  Bloomberg’s interest was that fine instruments as investments were exploding in value with auction prices of $15M, $18M and then $45M (McDonald Stradivarius viola).  They wanted to know whether Strads were really worth it:   the evolving view was that as antiques, just like a Chippendale table owned by a famous King, they are; but as unmatched in playing performance, no.

Anyone interested in the mystique of Stradivarius instruments, and the self-deception involved in judging instruments that is often aided and abetted by musicians, dealers, and promoters, should look at this videodocument Claudia Fritz’s and Joe Curtin’s subsequent double-blind Paris trial.   It is FASCINATING!!!

My next two projects:

1) Entering the Violin Society of America 2020 Luthier Competition, just to see what happens.  I have seen and played almost the entire 2014 VSA selection of top 100 violins and I feel mine are certainly in that league. And,

2) Performing the 1st movement of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto on my recently completed Messiah Strad model, with wonderful pianist Lisa Tahara, and much appreciating the coaching from Jon Crow, concertmaster of the TSO.

Looking forward to these next legs of the journey.