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‘It gets excellent sunlight’ - My Space: Svend Christensen

2023-07-14T08:46:00

Inset pic

A luthier in Kensington, Johannesburg, South Africa

I was born in Botswana, where my Danish father was working as an electrician. He took me back to Denmark where I grew up; then I went back to South Africa, where my mother came from, to study for a fine arts degree. Then I spent around 15 years in advertising until one day my violinist girlfriend broke her instrument and I fixed it for her. That was the start of a new life for me: I taught myself violin making, and opened a workshop in the Kensington suburb of Johannesburg. Soon afterwards I went to Fertans in France to study at Le Bois de Lutherie, to meet people and prevent ‘wrong’ working methods…

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