My becoming a luthier has had a long gestation.
I had taken violin lessons with the esteemed Sandra Stark in London, Ontario for many years. Subsequent teachers have included David Zafer (then a Professor at the University of Toronto, who taught me at the Banff Centre), Eduard Minevich (then the Concertmaster of Orchestra London, Ontario), and Yascha Milkis (then the Associate Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra).
As a teenager, I was a violinist in the London Youth Symphony Orchestra, and frequented the University of Western Ontario where rehearsals were held in Althouse College. I especially frequented the Music Library at Talbot College. There, I had access to many good books about violins, and received much encouragement from the staff - among them Sr. Louise Smith, Merwin Lewis, and Jane Baldwin. One day at the university, I noticed a poster announcing a forthcoming lecture to be given by Carleen Maley Hutchins on violin plate tuning. She has contributed extensive research in that field, worldwide, and is a founding member of the Catgut Acoustical Society. Her lecture was most enjoyable and intriguing, and increased my curiosity as to why some violins sound good and others bad.
While I had considered studying violin performance in university, I decided to study Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. As a young child, both my parents nurtured my sense of curiosity in scientific matters while they were graduate students studying Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. Systems Design Engineering presented engineering problems as often having multi-disciplinary technical as well as non-technical facets. This suited me very well. In each year of my studies as an engineer, I played in a chamber music group, composed of students from the Engineering, Mathematics, and Science faculties, and music students from neighbouring Wilfred Laurier University.
After graduating from UW in 1986, I began my career in engineering. While I very much enjoyed working as an engineer where I could exercise technical pursuits, I missed working with my hands, and I missed music. As I was to later discover, becoming a violin maker has allowed me to indulge all three pursuits at the same time. In my latter years as an engineer, I began taking violin making courses during my vacation weeks, eventually along with an arranged leave of absence. I started with a night school course offered by the Toronto Board of Education. I did not complete my first violin at this course - while the instructor was a very competent woodworker, he did not have the professional training as a violin maker - in addition, I wanted to receive instruction in the area of plate tuning. I contacted Mrs. Hutchins, who most graciously put me in contact with some of her former students in the Boston area, since she was no longer actively teaching. One of these was Alan Carruth. While his focus was on guitars, he also had expertise in violin plate tuning. I arranged to study with him. Through him, I came into contact with Bob and Deena Spear, who focused on violin-family instruments and had also been students of Mrs. Hutchins. Deena strongly encouraged me to contact Karl Roy (with whom she and Bob had also studied) to further my studies in lutherie. Karl, a retired director of the Mittenwald violin making school in Germany, taught summer classes at the University of New Hampshire. During the first of two summer sessions in which I studied with him, I expressed to Karl my desire to become a luthier. He gave me much encouragement, and suggested that I make my studies full-time. After making enquiries to a number of schools worldwide, I decided to attend the VMSA in Salt Lake City, starting classes in Fall 1996 and graduating Spring 1999.
