Making Violins the Old-Fashioned Way

 Lespets & Camden Fine Violins is a specialized violin shop and workshop located at 13 Doncaster Avenue, Kensington, NSW 2033. [1]

Services: They offer fine violins, expert luthier services, and restorations.
Access: Visits to the workshop are handled by appointment (workshop entrance via Carlton Lane).
Contact: You can reach them via phone at +61 490 080 337

Makers, Restorers and Dealers of fine Violins, Violas and Cellos in Sydney

Traditional musical instrument makers strike right note

In downtown Silicon Valley the tech cognoscenti of multimillion-dollar start-ups are in the business of disruption.

Anthea Cottee has a 21st-century problem with a 16th-century solution.

The cellist and viola da gamba player for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is the owner of a baroque cello and it’s no ordinary cello – it’s a Peter Walmsley from 1735.

“It has lots of cracks, and changes with humidity and temperature. Some years it needs a big overhaul. For that you’re talking $1000 upwards," Cottee says.

Violin makers and restorers, from left: Lilly Camden, Linda and Antoine Lespets.  Photo: Ben Rushton

The restoration and repair of period instruments such as Cottee’s have changed little over time, but finding a skilled craftsman is not easy in an age of fast-moving technologies.

From downtown Silicon Valley to uptown Sydney, the tech cognoscenti of multimillion-dollar start-ups are in the business of disruption. With every new app or cutting-edge software to hit the market, professional workers face impending irrelevance. But while the tech millennials continue to flourish, a small town in north-eastern France is churning out expert craftspeople in a trade unchanged for four centuries.

Crouched over the bench of their sun-drenched workshop in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Antoine and Linda Lespets tend to the fine particulars of 300- and 400-year-old violins, ­violas and cellos.

It’s a far cry from Mirecourt, the small town in France where they met. At Mirecourt, recognised for its handmade musical instruments and lace making, the Lespets studied at L’Ecole nationale de lutherie de Mirecourt, the French national violin-making school.

Isolated mediaeval town

“They call it little Siberia. It’s a very isolated mediaeval town, and it’s freezing. The only thing that keeps this area running is the violin centre because it was the traditional centre where violin factories used to be," Linda says.

After training with experts across Europe the pair moved to Sydney to start a family and capitalise on the niche nature of their trade. Just a few months out from having their son they were before a panel, successfully applying for a small business government grant.

Five years on, Lespets & Camden Fine Violins has become the workshop of choice for professionals from the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Sydney, Adelaide and Western Australia.

“We are very much an industry of tradition and we still copy what was done, even in 1515," says Antoine, who follows the craftsmanship of 16th- and 17th-century violin-making names, such as the Amati or Stradivari families.

From the wood to the animal hide glue, the tradition of violin making has changed little, save for the addition of electric hot plates.

“Restoration and repair is one of the most valued skills to have because period instruments need attention. They’re all very fragile and some ­damage can be irreversible," says Lilly Camden, an instrument buyer, violinist and the third person to complete the Kensington business.

Unlike other trades, violin making is not so easily learnt at a TAFE. In Australia there are two main options for prospective violin makers. 

Overseas training or apprenticeship

“If you need to be trained you either need to go to a school in Europe or America, or find a violin maker who is willing to take you in as an ap­prentice," Antoine says.

In Sydney he knows of just seven workshops like Lespets-Camden and about 43 across the country, specialising in making, restoring and dealing instruments. 

The Kensington workshop makes most of its money from sales and restoration but it also offers valuations.

The most common investment up-and-coming professionals make on their first violin is about $20,000, a figure that increases over time.

“A lot of students have instruments as their pension fund. So the other aspect for us is when musicians come in for insurance valuations on their instruments," Camden says.

Cottee knows the value and responsibilities of owning an antique instrument. She bought her Walmsley cello at a Sotheby’s auction in 1997 for about $13,000. Today it is worth $70,000.

Like with wine, better with age

“The sound develops a lot with age. It’s like that old analogy with wine – they become more complex," she says.

“Because a lot of the music I play was written around that time [1700s] it feels a real privilege to play an instrument that might have actually been there.

Down the years, violin makers have attempted to redesign the violin by changing the scroll or the shape of the f-holes, but Antoine says there is a reason Stradivari’s violins are still copied today. “He defined standards, measurements and shape. Maybe 80 per cent of violins made today are still made in the Strad model," he says. “He’s been a huge influence over 400 years and is still going. He is perfection in the making."

Antoine compares the perfect violin with the perfect piece of art.

“It will depend on taste, budget, ­history. It has to be the perfect match with the musician. A really good in­strument with a really good violin maker, that is the perfect combination for the performer."

Lucy Cormack was a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Dubai. Connect with Lucyon Twitter.

Jonathan Cooper, Who Made Violins the Old-Fashioned Way, Dies at 76

Renowned for their supple tone and range, his instruments were admired by world-class musicians like Mark O’Connor and Alison Krauss.

Jonathan Cooper, a luthier who crafted violins of such supple tone and exquisite range that they allowed players to bridge the gap between classical and American fiddle instrumentation, making him a favorite of musicians like Mark O’Connor and Alison Krauss, died on Monday in Scarborough, Maine, a suburb of Portland. He was 76.

His brother, the journalist Matthew Cooper, said the death, in a hospice center, was from sepsis.

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Jonathan Cooper in 2013. He was one of only about 100 expert violin makers in the United States.Credit...Tim Greenway/Portland Press Herald, via Getty Images

Mr. Cooper, who possessed an almost preternatural understanding of woods, varnishes and strings, was one of only about 100 expert violin makers in the United States. After spending several years studying in Cremona, Italy, the birthplace of the modern violin, he opened a shop in Portland, where he worked for over 40 years.

He made every instrument from scratch. After selecting his woods, often sourcing his spruce and maple from specific stands of trees, he carved each piece by hand. He preferred traditional tools and natural varnishes, which he kept neatly organized in his one-man workspace.

It took him about a month to make each violin, typically customized for each client. A Jonathan Cooper violin cost about $15,000, including free maintenance and repairs.

Many violinists have different instruments designed for different types of playing. Customers valued Mr. Cooper’s instruments for their immense tonal range, allowing them to use a single violin across a variety of musical styles — European classical, Cajun, Appalachian folk.

He customized all of his instruments based on extensive conversations with his clients, drawing on their styles of play, their travel routines and whether they used amplified sound.

“If I make a violin, I start off with a concept of the instrument, and I make every part of it from beginning to end, and I present it to the musician, I hear the person play it, I know that violin,” he told Maine Public, the public media network, in 2015.

Among his admirers was Mr. O’Connor, a Grammy Award-winning artist known for spanning Old and New World traditions. For years, he played a violin made in 1830 by the legendary French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, but he eventually set it aside in favor of one of Mr. Cooper’s instruments, which he found more versatile — and just as well made.

“I was looking for a unique sound that would help me bridge what I was doing musically, between the worlds of American string playing and jazz and classical music itself,” Mr. O’Connor said in an interview. “Here was a man that was really kind of excited to do with an instrument what I wanted to do with music.”

Alison Krauss and Mark O’Connor are both artists who have performed with violins made by Mr. Cooper.Credit...Gary Miller/FilmMagic, via Getty Images;Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Brooks Brothers 

After Mr. Cooper learned that Daniel Pearl, an American journalist who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, was an amateur fiddler, he set out to design and build a quartet of string instruments — two violins, a viola and a cello — in his honor.

Every year, four students from a music camp run by Mr. O’Connor receive one of the instruments to play for a year. Many of the recipients have gone on to successful professional careers.

“These young people carry the message that love fights hatred through music-making and understanding that Daniel Pearl’s family want him remembered for,” Mr. O’Connor said.

Mr. Cooper was not just an accomplished violin maker; he relished the opportunity to repair them.

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One of Mr. Cooper’s instruments being built in 2014, with clamps holding the top of the instrument onto the body while glue dries. Credit...Gregory Rec/Portland Portland Press Herald, via Getty Images

After Ms. Krauss, a Grammy-winning fiddle player, accidentally dropped her prized violin and split it nearly in two, she asked a luthier in Nashville to repair it. He demurred, saying it was too hard a job, but he recommended she take it to Mr. Cooper.

It took him months of work, but he returned it to her in perfect condition.

“My fiddle was in shards,” she said in an interview. “When I got it back, I couldn’t believe it.”

Jonathan Gelula Cooper was born on May 17, 1950, in Boston, where his father, Daniel, was completing a doctorate in nuclear physics at M.I.T. and his mother, Bette (Gelula) Cooper, was an artist. They soon relocated to Morristown, N.J., for his father’s job at Bell Labs.

He taught himself to play guitar as a teenager and played in bands around suburban New Jersey. In 1969, he enrolled in the New Division, an experimental program at Nasson College, now closed, in Maine. The New Division shuttered in 1970, and Mr. Cooper left higher education.

In 1971, he moved to Franconia, N.H., a small town in the middle of the state, where he played in the Con Fullam Band, a bluegrass ensemble. Though never a breakout success, the band gained a regional following and, in 1973, was one of the first acts to perform at CBGB in Manhattan.

Mr. Cooper did not encounter the violin until he was in his early 20s, when one of his bandmates brought one to practice. He tried it out and was immediately taken with it.

“There’s my life before that day, and my life after that day,” he told Strings magazine in 2021, “because I woke up in the morning, went downtown to a thrift store where I’d seen a violin for sale, bought it for like $7, and pretty much started teaching myself how to play it.”

While on tour in Europe with a different band, he took a side trip to Cremona to observe traditional luthiers. Watching them in action, he decided to make the craft his life’s work — he quit the band and stayed in Cremona for three years.  

Mr. Cooper in 2009 working on a violin. Early in his career, he studied with traditional luthiers in Cremona, Italy.Credit...Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald, via Getty Images

Mr. Cooper’s first marriage, to Leanne Daniels, ended in divorce. Besides his brother, he is survived by his wife, Liz Bieber; two sons, Amos and Seth, with his first wife; another son, Wyatt, with his second wife; and a sister, Ellen Cooper.

Admirers often characterized Mr. Cooper as an American Stradivari, the Italian master, a comparison he was too modest to accept in full, though he said he hoped that, like those of Stradivari, his instruments would also still be in use centuries after his death.

“When I make a violin, I’m pretty confident that, unless it’s really heavily damaged along the way, it’s going to be here 300 years from now,” he told Strings. “I really like that. Long, long after I’m dead, some of my violins will still be around, making music and, hopefully, you know, still making people happy.”

Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.