Violin Making Schools In Cremona Italy

[Terry Bachman]

I have a couple of questions about the violin making schools in Cremona Italy.

 What is the approximate tuition cost to attend each year?

How hard is it to get accepted? 

I am planning to retire soon and would like to go to Italy and learn violin making and restoration.

Thank you for your help.

T

[PhilipKT]

I applaud your goal, but why Cremona? Why not Chicago or Salt Lake?

[Terry Bachman]

It has been a bucket list item for the past 35 years to move to Europe and study there. It will also be a matter of how much the cost is.

[Stringy]

https://www.academiacremonensis.it/en/corso-di-costruzione-violino/

don’t know if this is any use to you. I once watched a film on Amazon called, ‘From Cremona to Cremona’ in which a young luthier from Bulgaria tried to get into a school in Cremona, he was already making fine looking
instruments and could play piano as well as violin. He managed to get into a school were he was expected to speak Italian and was placed with a load of students who were supposedly beginners even though he had been making them for ten years or so. Think he eventually went back to his own village, can’t remember exactly though. In any case it all seemed ridiculously difficult but I know nothing of the making aspect, and probably even less of the playing being a beginner myself.

[Stephen Fine]

On 8/11/2020 at 6:23 AM, Terry Bachman said:

I have a couple of questions about the violin making schools in Cremona Italy.

 What is the approximate tuition cost to attend each year?

How hard is it to get accepted? 

I am planning to retire soon and would like to go to Italy and learn violin making and restoration.

Thank you for your help.

T

I love that part of Italy.  I spent two summers playing chamber music in Courmayeur which is only a few hundred km due west.

[Mark Norfleet]

I think @Jeffrey Holmes should consider moving this thread to the “Pegbox” as there will be far more people with direct knowledge there.  If I’m not mistaken, there might be an age limit at the Cremona school these days.  One could always work privately with an individual maker.

I enjoyed my year at the school there.

[Jeffrey Holmes]

14 hours ago, Mark Norfleet said:

I think @Jeffrey Holmes should consider moving this thread to the “Pegbox” as there will be far more people with direct knowledge there.  

Thanks Mark,

Done.

[Davide Sora]

On 8/11/2020 at 12:23 PM, Terry Bachman said:

I have a couple of questions about the violin making schools in Cremona Italy.

 What is the approximate tuition cost to attend each year?

How hard is it to get accepted? 

I am planning to retire soon and would like to go to Italy and learn violin making and restoration.

Thank you for your help.

T

I think you may find this recent thread useful :

 

However, the "Cremona international school of violin making" it's a state school which has rather low costs but does not accept students over thirty, while the private one (Academia Cremonensis) is open to all but much more expensive.

[rudall]

On 8/13/2020 at 1:44 AM, PhilipKT said:

I applaud your goal, but why Cremona? Why not Chicago or Salt Lake?

It may come as a surprise, but not everyone is an American and some who are might like to escape for a year or two. And a choice among Cremona, Chicago and Salt Lake City? Are you kidding?

[David Burgess]

57 minutes ago, rudall said:

It may come as a surprise, but not everyone is an American and some who are might like to escape for a year or two. And a choice among Cremona, Chicago and Salt Lake City? Are you kidding?

Would you care to elaborate on a choice between the Cremona, Chicago and Salt Lake City schools? Oddly enough, neither Charles Beare nor his father chose to enroll their kids in the Cremona school, and they have earned a place among the top experts in the world.

[rudall]

The word ‘school’ was not in my post.

[Terry Bachman]

Thanks for all the information. I have been waiting for a reply and more details from the schools in Cremona. I hope to hear soon. The choice to go there is less about the type or quality of school but the cost. I don't have the money going into retirement to spend $35,000-$80,000 to go to one of the schools in the US. If there is any possibility of getting into a school that is state sponsored or with lower cost would make it more possible.

I have also lived for 58 years in southwest Michigan and would like to have an adventure living somewhere else. My end game would be to get a background in building then get into restoration / conservation work.

Thanks again and I hope to hear more if anyone can add anything.

[not telling]

I thought the Cremona School is free! True?

[Navyasw02]

I visited academia cremonesis last year on vacation and found it and the city were both lovely. Would certainly make for a great bucket list experience. It didn't sound like the admissions requirements were a limitation if you have a passion for it and desire to learn.

[Ethan Ford Heath]

Newark? It is Europe-adjacent, at least.

https://www.lincolncollege.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-musical-instrument-craft-violin-making-and-repair/

[Terry Bachman]

1 hour ago, Ethan Ford Heath said:

Newark? It is Europe-adjacent, at least.

https://www.lincolncollege.ac.uk/courses/ba-hons-musical-instrument-craft-violin-making-and-repair/

Ethan,

Thanks for the message. I have been looking around all of Europe at different possibilities. The school in Newark is still around $33,000 for the 3 years (about the same as Chicago). The schools in Germany looked good as far as cost but the entrance requirements seem a bit harder that other places.

[Davide Sora]

11 hours ago, not telling said:

I thought the Cremona School is free! True?

As for the "official" violin making school (the one founded in 1937) yes, like all state schools here in Italy it is free, you just have to pay a few hundred euros a year in taxes to the state.

A few years ago this new private school was opened, Academia Cremonensis, which instead costs a lot (15,000 euros per year for the complete course, if I remember correctly), But they organize customized courses of various durations, including those of a few days where they teach you how to assemble a violin kit

[David Burgess]

13 hours ago, rudall said:

The word ‘school’ was not in my post.

If you weren't talking about the schools, then I probably wouldn't choose Chicago or Newark, if one is into skiing.

[Michael Darnton]

Worse yet, it's not actually Chicago but Skokie, land of 10,000 differently decorated garage doors, the town's most exciting feature when last I drove through for a tour some years ago (a fact curiously not noted in the tour books!)

[Michael Appleman]

Just thought I'd chime in that school quality aside, Mirecourt might rival Skokie for excitement...

[not telling]

Americans probably cannot up and move to Cremona these days. Until then, North Bennett Street School would be nice culturally, if you can afford to live in Boston. I don't know how anyone can. My husband was paying $800/month, so most of his wages from an unnamed stringed instrument specialist, to live in a real crack house with no hot water or heat and dodgy electricity, mere blocks from Harvard. He had to walk through all kinds of underworld insanity to get to his room. No hyperbole. But he also could go to unlimited concerts and events for free and he met interesting people every day... so...kinda balances out? Sure.

His benchmate had a wife making $80,000 a year, and a newborn, and they were very lucky to score sweet digs,  a 2 bdr 1 bath directly above a punk bar in a mostly safe working class neighborhood. Also spending most of their income for the privilege ... I don't know...I don't even see how it's possible to make it there.

Still, Boston is pretty nice.  Pleasant way to retire for sure, if you can.  Best US city by far.*

 

(*says me)

[David Burgess]

I have always preferred to live in a "working class" neighborhood. Solid people, and a lot less bullchit.

Unfortunately, since I first bought the house we currently live in, things have changed. One needs to be borderline wealthy to purchase one of these houses any more. But we still have enough people who were "grandfathered in", that the neighborhood hasn't totally surrendered to the "cork sniffers".

My wife (on her own) also owns a house in a working class suburb of Cincinnati. I think she only paid around 158K for that house. We both love the neihborhood

[Andreas Preuss]

On August 16, 2020 at 7:55 AM, Terry Bachman said:

Thanks for all the information. I have been waiting for a reply and more details from the schools in Cremona. I hope to hear soon. The choice to go there is less about the type or quality of school but the cost. I don't have the money going into retirement to spend $35,000-$80,000 to go to one of the schools in the US. If there is any possibility of getting into a school that is state sponsored or with lower cost would make it more possible.

I have also lived for 58 years in southwest Michigan and would like to have an adventure living somewhere else. My end game would be to get a background in building then get into restoration / conservation work.

Thanks again and I hope to hear more if anyone can add anything.

I applaud your enthusiasm but I would say one thing at a time. Learning violin making us difficult enough, restoration is by far more sophisticated and takes much more responsibility. 

Better to get started with the 'easy' stuff. 

[deans]

I visit Ann Arbor/ U. Mich every few years. The last thing I think is "working class" . Common theme among larger college towns throughout the US, they've become bedroom/retirement communities. But at U. Mich even the students look like they come from money these days. 

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, deans said:

I visit Ann Arbor/ U. Mich every few years. The last thing I think is "working class" . Common theme among larger college towns throughout the US, they've become bedroom/retirement communities. But at U. Mich even the students look like they come from money these days. 

Many of them do, so that's why there is somewhat of a "culture war" in our little town. We have people with a lot of life experience, and also those who have little life experience whatsoever,  who are more drawn to "pie in the sky".