THE STRAD NOVEMBER 200578

bout 200 kilometres northwest

of Toronto lies Owen Sound, nestled

round a natural harbour on Lake Huron’s

Georgian Bay. It’s a quiet, pretty town with

a population of about 30,000 which, located

far enough from the big cities to be of no interest to commuters,

acts as a service community for the outlying counties of Grey

and Bruce. Owen Sound is popular with boaters in the summer

and skiers in the winter, and was once known for shipbuilding.

Today, however, among knowledgeable musicians the town is

known for its luthiers.

There’s certainly no lack of luthiers in Canada and there are

instrument builders of every kind from the Atlantic to the Pacific:

Ontario-based Raymond Schryer (see The Strad October 2005)

rose to international fame when one of his cellos won the gold

medal at the Cremona Triennale; and when, in 1995, bass virtuoso

Gary Karr was looking for a replacement for his Italian bass, he

commissioned James Ham, a luthier in Victoria, British Columbia,

to build him a new instrument. Then there’s Chris Sandvoss in

Calgary, Quentin Playfair in Toronto and Denis Cormier in

Montreal; while Joseph Curtin, based across the border in Ann

Arbor, Michigan, is also a Canadian.

Although there is still no formal instrument building course

in Canada, the construction of stringed instruments in the country

dates back to the 18th century. Today’s Canadian luthiers enjoy

several advantages: plenty of good wood; a growing acceptance

among Canadian players; proximity to the vast US market; and

a beneficial exchange rate with the US. Luthiers can live just about

anywhere they want, setting up shop in big cities, small towns and

the countryside. Nevertheless, the presence of half a dozen luthiers

in the Owen Sound area – far removed from any concentration

of professional musicians – is remarkable.

LOCAL COLOUR

An abundant supply of North American woods is just one of the attractions of Canada’s Owen Sound, home to a group of technology-savvy luthiers.

COLIN EATOCK pays a visit

North America Focus

The Niagara Escarpment nearOwen Sound. The local luthiers

often use North American wood

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This 2005 cello by Sibylle Ruppertis inspired by aRugeri instrument

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It’s worth referring to it as ‘the Owen Sound area’, as only two

makers live in Owen Sound itself: Lou Currah lives on the eastern

edge of the town and produces instruments for a diverse local

market; Edouard Bartlett, a retired school teacher who’s been

building student instruments for half a century, works in a small

studio behind a used-appliance shop in the centre of town.

Bartlett believes the area has become popular with luthiers

because of its affordability. ‘You can have a house, or a farm,

and make a few violins and live at a reasonable cost,’ he explains.

‘Gradually a group of young men who were making violins came

up here, when they realised what a nice place it was to live.’

The younger luthiers began to settle there in the late 1980s

and they have brought international attention to the area. The first

to arrive, in 1987, were Greg Walke and Sybille Ruppert. He was

from Toronto, she was from Germany, and they had met seven

years earlier at the school for makers in Abertridwr, Wales,

where they studied with Malcolm Siddall. After spending several

years working in shops in Wiesbaden and Stuttgart, they chose

to leave Europe.

‘Sybille wanted to come to Canada,’ explains Walke,

‘and I missed certain aspects of life in Canada: the outdoors

and the sparser population. We wouldn’t have been able to start

our own business in Germany so easily, because of its guild system.

We had friends in the Owen Sound area, so that’s why we

came here.’

After one year on a farm, the couple moved to the village of

Paisley, in nearby Bruce County, where they bought an old house

and built a shared studio at the bottom of the garden. Walke is

exclusively a luthier, while Ruppert divides her time between

building and repairing instruments. They make violins and violas,

but they both have a special interest in cellos.

‘It was difficult getting started,’ recalls Walke. ‘We were so far

from any musical centre that it was a problem becoming known.

We found that we had to do a lot of travelling.’ Today they sell

their violins and violas on consignment through shops in Toronto,

Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa, but they often sell their cellos

directly – Walke’s for US $20,000, and Ruppert’s for $12,000. As

for where the instruments end up, Walke believes he currently has

some in the orchestras of Toronto and Quebec City, but says he

doesn’t really keep track of these things.

Walke and Ruppert are both candid about their influences: he

uses the ‘Davidov’ Strad as a model and she prefers a Rugeri cello.

‘But our instruments aren’t really copies,’ Walke says, pointing out

that they don’t use moulds. ‘Rather, they’re inspired by these

particular instruments.’ Similarly, they make no secret of their

fondness for power tools, especially a die grinder that’s good for

roughing out cello plates. ‘It saves about five hours, and a lot of

blisters,’ laughs Ruppert.

Walke often uses European woods, but Ruppert favours North

American varieties (and the irony in this is not lost upon them).

They both darken their wood, but balk at elaborate antiquing

procedures. They also have a chemical-vapour system for ‘settling’

their instruments, using potassium carbonate to extract moisture

and potassium nitrate to increase it. And they like to experiment –

Ruppert is working on a set of four violins that will differ only

in their final treatments: the first will be boiled, the second will

be treated with borax, the third with Magister varnish products

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Prentice set up shop in an old tailor’s on Flesherton’s main street in 1988

Walke and Ruppert share this garden studio but do not work together

Prentice uses North American maple,as on the back of this violin

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and the fourth will be left untreated. One thing that they don’t do,

however, is collaborate. ‘We work differently,’ says Walke, ‘and I

was never interested in making things with other people.’ Ruppert

agrees. Between them they produce about 16 instruments a year.

The next maker to move to the area was David Prentice, who

arrived in 1988. Essentially self-taught, he set up in the village

of Flesherton, choosing an old tailor’s shop on the high street as

his studio. He lives with his family in the house attached to it.

His reputation has gradually grown and today his instruments

are owned by players in the Toronto and Montreal symphony

orchestras, the Dutch Radio Orchestra, the Irish National Orchestra

and the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

‘I have a lot of machines,’ Prentice admits, pointing to his

router, sander and band saw. ‘In my opinion the work’s hard

enough without wasting time on things that aren’t going to

make any acoustical difference. At one time, the junior man

would have done the roughing out, but now he’s a machine.

I still end up doing many things by hand, however.’

Prentice makes about ten violins and violas per year. He uses

North American woods – Engelman spruce for tops and maple

for backs – but favours tried-and-tested European models,

patterning his work on Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ and Montagnana

designs. Like Walke and Ruppert he is quick to point out

that his instruments are not direct copies, but are ‘based on their

sizes and dimensions’. He admires ‘the patina of warmth that’s

associated with old instruments’ and darkens his wood using

ultraviolet light and the volcanic stone pozzolano.

His may be a traditional approach to the craft, but Prentice

is not averse to innovation when circumstances require it. ‘I do

about half of my work to order,’ he says, ‘and when I’m making

violas, players give me their ideas. I’ve done cut-aways. I just

made an instrument for a player who didn’t want a cut-away,

but did want an instrument that would allow her to shift more

easily. So I made her a viola with a shoulder that was sloped.

She was quite happy with that.’

The year after Prentice had arrived, John Newton moved

to the Owen Sound area. ‘The Toronto housing market was at

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NOVEMBER 2005 THE STRAD 83

its peak in 1989,’ Newton recalls, ‘and I wanted to be far enough

away from the city that real estate prices would be low. I knew

that Greg and David had already moved up here, so it seemed like

something was happening.’ Today he lives with his family in a

renovated one-room school building lying in the rolling farmland

of Grey County. He has set up his shop in the attic, where he

works alone – or sometimes with an apprentice – turning out

violins, violas and the occasional cello. He produces about

a dozen instruments a year.

Newton is best known for his violas and has a penchant for

the unconventional. ‘Violin making is so formal,’ he says, ‘and

you do the same thing over and over again. It’s fun to give an

instrument a more personal character and you can do that with a

viola.’ He’s made a number of cut-aways, both symmetrical and

asymmetrical, and a few cornerless instruments. He also once built

a viola that looks like it might have been designed by Salvador

Dalí, just to see how it would sound; but he’s never sold it.

A Prentice viola. He usesEngelman spruce for hisinstrument tops

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‘I like to change instruments by changing parts,’ explains

Newton. ‘I don’t like to abandon an instrument if it’s not sounding

right. Sometimes you have a suspicion that the instrument

isn’t working because the back isn’t quite right and sometimes

you can fix that with a new back. That’s the only way to learn –

the rest is all supposition.’ He constantly tries out new varnishes,

giving his instruments what he calls a ‘moderate antique’ finish.

Like the other luthiers in the area, Newton has no qualms

about using power tools for the rough work. He also uses

North American woods – Engelman spruce, Douglas fir

and maples – although here his views tend to be a little more

conservative. ‘It’s nice to have super curly, beautiful wood,’ he

acknowledges, ‘but I’d rather use material of known acoustical

value. A piece of maple can be curly, but I would prefer one with

more reflective flashing.’

These days Newton is asking $10,000 for his violins and a little

more for violas. He either works to order or sells through dealers

in Canada and the US. ‘My client list is bereft of big-name

players,’ he explains modestly, ‘and I don’t pursue those people.

But a good example of my work is the viola played by

Leslie Robertson of the St Lawrence Quartet. I approached

her and said I’d like to make a viola for her on spec and was

overjoyed when she liked it.’ Almost as an afterthought,

he mentions instruments of his in the symphony orchestras in

Boston, Cleveland, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.

The back of a cornerless viola by Newton. ‘Violin making is so formal,’ he says.‘It’s fun to give something a more personal character.’

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The back of the Sibylle Ruppertcello on page 79. Originally fromGermany, Ruppert prefers to use

North American maple

A 2005 violin byGreg Walke. Unlike

the other OwenSound makers, he

sources most of hiswood from Europe

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The group’s instruments have acquired a reputation right across

Canada. Gerald Stanick, a well-known violist and instrument

dealer in Vancouver, knows the work of Newton, Prentice, Walke

and Ruppert. ‘They’re probably under-appreciated in North

America,’ he says. ‘But whenever their instruments are played,

they’re hailed as excellent.’ Yet does this group of luthiers –

all around the age of 50, all living in the same area – constitute

a school? The short answer is ‘No’: they’re simply too independent

to be accurately described as such. But the long answer is

a little more complicated and must take into account several

undeniable similarities.

The makers all like to work alone, although they’re collegial

and often in contact with each other. They’re not inclined towards

extensive advertising or self-promotion, preferring to let their

instruments speak for themselves; if they don’t win competitions

then it’s probably because they don’t enter them. And while

they’re pragmatic about power tools, they’re painstaking

and methodical with every instrument they build, eschewing

mass production. Above all, they’re traditionalists who refuse

merely to copy and they’re always interested in new approaches

to old problems.

All the makers except for Ruppert were connected to the late

Otto Erdesz, who set up shop in Toronto in 1975 and taught

Curtin before his move to Michigan. Newton knew him best

and, of the group, he’s the closest to an Erdesz student; but Walke

and Prentice also knew the Hungarian-born luthier and his work.

‘Otto didn’t use jigs, moulds or forms at all,’ recalls Newton

with admiration. ‘He preferred to change the details constantly.

He had confidence in his ability to draw a nice curve or cut a nice

f-hole. His instruments have an almost over-the-top roughness

about them, but he had a sophisticated eye. He looked at my first

violin and said, “This is so bad that I can’t let you go on doing

it this way!”’

Finally, the luthiers of Owen Sound share an optimistic

outlook: a belief that their own work is improving all the time

and also that the craft itself is advancing. ‘Instrument making

is more transparent than it used to be,’ says Prentice. ‘Everything

used to be so guarded, but now people are more open. Things like

measurements, wood and varnish are now openly talked about.

And that’s why there’s been such an improvement in the quality

of modern instruments. A breath of fresh air has gone through

the whole business.’

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