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ULRIKE’S AN ENCOUNTER WITH MS. DEDERER, THE FIRST WOMAN TO ENTER THE HALL OF FAME
The discipline of violinmaking calls for precision and patience in shaping the wood and modelling it with gouges, scrapers and planes so small they look like tools for a doll’s house. Just a few microns of an auroral amber varnish are applied on the surface, the composition of which is the personal, secret and precious alchemy of each violin maker. In spite of the fact that this craft requires typically feminine skills and sensitivity, in history violin makers have almost always been men. Yet in Cremona, last September, the International Triennial Competition promoted by the Fondazione Antonio Stradivari saw Ulrike Dederer win first prize in the viola category. She is the first woman to enter the list of honours of the world’s most important violinmaking exhibition, so important it is considered an authentic Olympiad. “Receiving the award on the stage of the Ponchielli Theatre was an indescribable feeling!” she recalls. “This success represents a great achievement for my violinmaking, it is one of the world’s most prestigious accolades.” A victory that crowns a passion that has endured since childhood: “I started playing the cello when I was 9. At 16, on a trip to Wales with my city’s youth orchestra, I visited a school for luthiers. I was fascinated. So after my high school diploma I moved to Cremona to attend the International VioLeft, Ulrike Dederer in her Zurich atelier. Top, the viola made by the gold medal winner at the XIII International Triennial Competition of Stringed Instruments “Antonio Stradivari”, 2013. Opposite page, exhibition of the instruments of the competition at Cremona’s Violin Museum. * Director of the Fondazione Antonio Stradivari, Cremona
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