Twenty-five years at the bench
A workshop on the ground floor of a house in Mirecourt, a north-facing window, and instruments born or reborn in the same hands.
The luthier
A craft learned in the town of the violin
Born in the Vosges, I walked through the door of the National School of Violin Making in Mirecourt at eighteen. There I learned the gesture, then left to test it: a restoration workshop in Cremona, another in Paris, serving orchestra musicians.
In 2006, I came back to open my own workshop in Mirecourt. I make two or three new instruments a year there, and restore those that already have a long life behind them.
My path
The stages of a journey
National School of Violin Making
Three years of training in Mirecourt: drawing, carving, varnish, and the first signed violin.
Cremona
Two years in an Italian restoration workshop, working on old instruments.
Paris, serving orchestras
Set-ups and repairs for professional musicians, often the day before a concert.
Back to Mirecourt
Opening of the workshop in Mirecourt, and a first viola on my own pattern.
Sixty signed instruments
New violins, violas and cellos, and hundreds of instruments restored or set up for their musicians.
The wood comes from the forest across the road
The spruce for the tops grows slowly on the Vosges heights, in shade and cold: tight, even growth rings, the condition for a top that vibrates.
In brief
The workshop
A place of work, not a shop: you come in by appointment, play in peace, and leave with an instrument set up for you.