A COFFEE TABLE MARKED THE GENESIS OF RYAN SOLTIS’S

career in lutherie. ‘I was doing woodworking at school and my father

took me to a violin maker to buy some lumber for my project,’ he

says. ‘I’d never met one in my life, and I thought it was the neatest

thing. I said to my father that day:“I’m going to be a violin maker.”’

Soltis was true to his word. He graduated from the Violin Making

School of America (VMSA) in Salt Lake City in 2000 and went to work

in David Folland’s Minnesota workshop for two years.‘He brought out

the very best workmanship I had inside of me,’ says Soltis. ‘We were

always working to the highest level of craftsmanship and nothing was

ever rushed.’ Soltis now works from his home in Salt Lake City, selling

his instruments through dealers Reuning & Son and John R.Waddle.

A meeting with fellow VMSA alumnus Sam Zygmuntowicz at the

Oberlin Violin Makers Workshop led to an opportunity that has

contributed enormously to Soltis’s development:‘It was a bit of a long

shot but I asked him if I could do work experience at his studio in

New York. He said yes, and it went so well that he asked me to go out

there more often.’ Two years on, the young maker still spends several

weeks every two or three months in New York, watched over by his

mentor as he works on his instruments.‘Under his instruction I have

learnt to meet the needs of top players,’ says Soltis.

Although Soltis has made four cellos and five violas, he focuses on

violins, modelling most on a 1736 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ but with what

he describes as ‘my own feel’. He prefers Bosnian maple over American

wood (‘it gives the sound more colour and a broader range of overtones’),

while he aims for a tone that is ‘very rich and dark but with a kind of

sizzle on top of it, a certain brilliance to go with that darkness’.

Soltis is a true craftsman, and his plans include building a house

and workshop in rural Idaho:‘I want to be a large part of the building

process. I have this need to construct things.’

Catherine Payne

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