STRYX

Just got news from my friend and luthier Gesina Liedmeier that my new fiddle will be ready quite a bit sooner than expected – this makes me do a little joy- jump! The instrument will be built with historical building techniques – a lot of carving rather than assembling – and will be modeled after the late 14th and early 15th Cty examples in iconography. That moment is still a very mysterious chapter in history of bowed instruments; the trecento arm fiddles are on their way out, and it’s still a bit early for the proto – viola da gambas, like the ones we know from the Lorenzo Costa painting. For Gesina, it will be the second viol/fiddle of that type she builds, and we’re looking forward to play the pair of them together, since we know about all those pairs o fiddle/viola players like the 2 blind Castillians working for Binchois in the Burgundian court.

The new fiddle will be inspired by the story of the Owls of Athens
and this beauty of a STRYX by Albrecht Dürer