LUTHIERS SANS FRONTIÈRES

Since its creation in 2001, the charity Luthiers sans Frontières has brought the tools and skills for violin making to some of the poorest countries in the world. Peter Somerford speaks to representatives of the UK and US chapters to discover its impact over the past two decades

Haitian luthier Tchoupy with his graduation certificate (above) and repairing a double bass

ALL PHOTOS JOHN M. CAHILL

When Haitian luthier Grafield Hylaris, also known as Tchoupy, started out fixing instruments over 15 years ago, he was resetting soundposts using forks and other kitchen utensils. Today, as one of the most highly skilled violin repairers in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, he has a fully equipped professional workshop, is teaching repair skills to students, has formed a lutherie association and is set to become head luthier at a dedicated school for instrument repair.

Ten years ago Natasha Sealey-Worrell was a quietly curious string student at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, who wanted to learn how to maintain her instrument and bow in a country that lacked any violin or bow workshop. Now she is the only professionally trained bow repairer in Trinidad, and has her own business offering rehairs and restorations.

Both Tchoupy and Sealey-Worrell were trained and mentored by volunteer violin makers and bow makers from the international charity Luthiers sans Frontières (Luthiers without Borders, or simply LSF). It has worked to raise the level of instrument and bow maintenance and repair in Haiti and Trinidad, and some ten other countries. Originating as a small Belgium-based non-governmental organisation in 2001, LSF aims to support music programmes and musicians by offering training missions in countries where there are no skilled repairers. And it’s not just about training – volunteers also repair instruments and bows themselves, and bring tools and supplies for equipping a basic workshop, along with donated strings, instruments, accessories, bow hair and other materials.

After volunteering with LSF Belgium, luthier and writer John Milnes helped found a British branch of the charity in 2007. Robert Cain, who taught for many years at the Newark School of Violin Making and is the current chair of LSF-UK, volunteered for one of its first missions, to Haiti in 2008, and has since been to Afghanistan, Malawi and the Philippines.

Tchoupy (far right) and friends collaborate on gluing a bass

Other missions have taken LSF-UK volunteers to Ecuador, Antigua and Uganda. After volunteering for LSF-UK missions to Haiti and Ecuador in 2010, Atlanta-based bow maker Anna Huthmaker set up a US chapter with another LSF volunteer, Minneapolis violin maker Ute Zahn, and together they have run LSF-USA missions to Trinidad and most recently Belize. The original Belgian arm of LSF has been less active in recent years, with its founder Paul Jacobs now 71 and no younger luthier as yet taking on his leadership role. But LSF-Belgium remains involved in a strings project for primary schoolchildren in Djerba, Tunisia, where it supplied and is helping to care for about 100 small violins and cellos.