In a Skokie studio, violin makers polish their craft

Inside the dimly lit Skokie workshop, the chink of chisels and whirr of sanders is interrupted only by the strains of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."

Away from the wooden work benches, jars of varnish and sawdust-covered sketch books, Robyn Sullivan is playing "Summer" on an amber-colored maple and spruce instrument she spent months crafting by hand.

"Handmade violins, to the untrained eye, they look all the same," said Sullivan, a student at the Chicago School of Violin Making, tucked along an industrial road in Skokie. "But every violin has its own personality. And they're all very, very different."

In a world of new technology and machine-made goods, Sullivan and her two dozen classmates are learning the centuries-old trade of crafting blocks of wood by hand into violins, violas, cellos and basses - hoping to join a small-but-growing U.S. industry.

No one tracks exactly how many violin makers are working in the U.S. or how many instruments they produce. But Christopher Reuning, president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers guesses tens of thousands of instruments are sold each year.

"It's very healthy," said Reuning, who began learning how to make violins when he was 12 through an apprenticeship and now owns Reuning & Son Violins in Boston. "And there's more and more musicians who are finding that the quality of new violins compete pretty favorably with the old instruments, especially considering the price."

Experts credit immigrant craftsman who founded a handful of small full-time schools in the 1970s with breathing new life into the U.S. violin-making industry.

Now the first wave of graduates from the schools' early days are at the top of the American industry - including Sam Zygmuntowicz, whose instruments are used by world-class performers like Joshua Bell, have fetched nearly $200,000.

Students in the full-time, three-year program at the Chicago School of Violin Making, opened in 1975 by Tschu Ho Lee, are required to produce seven handmade instruments, including three violins and a viola. Parts of Friday classes are reserved for music lessons, and students are required to make exacting sketches of their instruments.

The goal at the school, the second-oldest of its kind in the country, is to teach a new generation of craftsman how to compete with instruments made more than 300 years ago by masters like Stradivari and Guarneri.

As part of their final exam, students must produce a violin - without the weekslong varnishing process - in six weeks.

"If you are doing this to eat, you better be able to do it that fast," said Rebecca Elliott, an instructor at the school.

There are four full-time violin-making schools with multiyear curriculums like the one in Skokie. In addition, some universities offer classes, and workshops and other programs are held around the country.

The newest luthiers are benefiting from the rapidly escalating price of the Old World instruments, which are increasingly sought by collectors and priced out of reach of all but the most acclaimed professional musicians.

This spring, a Stradivari owned by the first woman to play in the strings section of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra sold for $1.2 million at Christie's auction house. A 1729 Stradivari violin, known as the Hammer, sold at Christie's in 2006 for $3.5 million - a record for any musical instrument, according to the auctioneer.

That makes the American models more affordable, although makers still find themselves competing with European instruments, especially those made in Cremona, the famous violin-making region of Italy.

Even so, Reuning says business is going well for many of the 170 members of his group, who are required to submit examples of their work before being admitted.

At the Chicago School of Violin Making, students use many of the same techniques as the European grand masters.

"Knowing that I'm building something that might be around in 300 years is kind of cool," said Aaron Brown, a 29-year-old double-bass player who is a student at the Chicago school. "It's neat knowing that if your instruments are good, people will play them and search for them."

Instructors in Chicago are optimistic about the prospects for the students upon graduation. And Sullivan, 26, believes she has a real chance as a luthier.

"It's not going to come easy," she said. "You have to do all the work and get your work out there and get your instruments out there and get them played."