Restoration Workshop

Mark started working in a violin shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan while in his last year of high school, during which he was typically playing bass in 3 orchestras and a school jazz band.  After a year and a half at that small shop, and realizing his fate there likely involved doing a high percentage of crappy repairs on beat-up school instruments, he spent a scholastic year at the school of Violin Making in Cremona where he was able to concentrate solely on making instruments, visiting too many bakeries and discovering that coffee could actually be worth drinking while on a non-stop trip to Mittenwald and back on a 50cc “motorcycle”.  After returning from Italy, he spent some time working on his own and was the chief go-fer for Eric Chapman preparing for and during the first full VSA competition.  Not long after, he was invited to work with David Burgess at Shar Music where he spent 10 years doing a large variety of very involved repair and restoration work, along with training others in the shop and being involved in (and victim of) a practical joke or two…

For the past 36 years he has been working alone making the occasional instrument and doing creative restoration, maintenance and sound adjustment work for many orchestral musicians in the Midwest as well as others from all over North America who have appreciated his skills and predictable results over the decades.

When not working on instruments he’s often running stupid distances, occasionally in interesting conditions.