Sometimes people ask if I have any Australian violins. It’s a complicated question, do you mean an Australian branded violin, Australian made violin or violin made from Australian timber? You see some of the larger specialty violin stores in Australia will import and brand violins to sell in their shops, inevitably these violins come from China…and by law will likely need to say made in China…but its not always easy to see that
I don’t have a problem with these violins, per se, reputable stores have good quality control and relationships with their suppliers and you have a convenient place you can return them if needed. The new student violins I sell are from Australian wholesalers who source them from China. I’ve been very happy with the quality and select from among their range for the best sound for $$ spent , rather than the prettiest woods.
Some of the Australian violin makers will actually get partially finished violins from China and do the final finished – like tuning the plates to gte the best out of these instruments. It makes sense to leverage the low cost of labour over there and maximise the value of the expertise of a local make in this way. I know of at least one maker who suppliers, from his private stock of European timber to China to have the violins roughed out and then shipped back for him to finish…genius and his violins sound lovely.
Other Australian violin makers such as the Glanville family make use of technology such as CNC’s to undertake the labour intensive stages of violin making before finishing them off by hand…a very good solution and keeps the price of hand built violins affordable.
Still other Australia violin makers will use Australian timbers to make their violins. these makers are much less common (This violin above is made by my teacher David Brown from Victoria) This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, there is a lot of tradition in violin making and European timbers for most are the only timbers you can use end of story. The other is the relative scarcity of Australian timbers suitable for making violins. In general you need slow growing old timbers, for the prized narrow grain lines. Australia with its hot climate..our trees tend to grow to fast. Some makers have had success with Tasmanian timbers like King Billy pine, its colder down there and so the tress grow a lot slower so you can get the fine grains and timbers like kingbilly pine have the mechano-elastic properties of spruce to be light, strong and most importantly resonant!
So if your looking for a truly Australian violin have a think about what aspects need to be Australian …and be prepared to get out your chequebook if you don’t want to compromise.