Sixty Years of a Master's Secrets in a Workshop Violin

Inokuchi & Son have been hand crafting violins, violas and cellos in Toronto for over 40 years. The Inokuchi shop currently consists of master luthier Masa Inokuchi, and his son Miki. Instrument building has been in the Inokuchi family for three generations and found its beginning with the building of classical guitars in Japan. With the family’s third generation maker fully engaged in the art of violin making, the Inokuchi shop remains vital and active to this day, priding itself on achieving artist level quality and playability in their master made instruments. This is achieved through the careful proprietary tuning of plates and extreme care and attention paid to the setup of their instruments, processes carefully developed by master maker Masa Inokuchi. These efforts have built an impressive client list of the some of the world’s most beloved artists, including Pinchas Zukerman and Vladimir Orlov.

Now, for the first time, Shar is proud to introduce the Atelier Inokuchi violin, based on the principles of Inokuchi master-made instruments, yet at a more approachable price. This instrument has been developed by Miki Inokuchi as a response to the needs of advancing violinists who seek an instrument that enables them to freely express a wide variety of tonal colors and styles. A player at this level, perhaps a serious high school or college student, is ready to move up to an instrument that can help bring them to the brink of a professional career.

Employing his 35 years of experience, Miki Inokuchi's first step in the process of making his Atelier Inokuchi violins is to carefully source unfinished violins from a quality workshop; with maple guaranteed aged a minimum of 10 years, and spruce a minimum of five years, Miki Inokuchi specifies that the wood must be left thick, a critical element in the creation of an Atelier Inokuchi instrument -- once in his shop, each instrument has its tonal plates carved to exacting dimensions, carefully tuned according to the unique qualities inherent in each piece of wood, then reassembled. It is only then that the instrument is finished with traditional hand-applied oil varnish, in the signature Inokuchi rich red brown over a pleasing golden-yellow ground. The result is a violin that is equally at home in a chamber group as it is in a concert hall. The meticulous attention to the tonal quality of each instrument allows the Atelier Inokuchi violin to offer a truly professional quality instrument at a workshop price.

Once final adjustments are made, Miki Inokuchi sets up each violin to produce its optimal "Inokuchi Sound", an overall balanced quality of sound with a brilliant high register and rich low register. Each violin has its own character of tonal colors, and the optimal adjustment brings out this character, greatly shortening the play-in period.

Upon arrival at Shar, each Atelier Inokuchi violin receives Shar's highest professional-level setup, ebony fittings, and artist-level Jargar Superior synthetic strings.

Note: Images are typical of this model, but may vary due to being an individually crafted instrument by a master maker.

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