Jan Špidlen

About

Jan Bohumil Špidlen was born in Prague in 1967, the only son of master Přemysl Otakar Špidlen, and is the fourth generation of a violin making family active in Prague since 1909. He grew up in his father’s workshop among instruments, music and wood, and played the violin from the age of five. He studied woodcarving at the secondary school of applied arts in Prague, learned the basics of violin making during a year at the International School of Violin Making in Mittenwald and then continued under his father. In 1989 he spent a year as a restorer with the renowned London firm J. & A. Beare.

He has been a member of the Circle of Czech Master Violinmakers since 1988, and in 2003 he was admitted to the Entente Internationale des Maîtres Luthiers et Archetiers d’Art, whose conference he hosted in Prague in 2011. Today, in the family workshop in Jungmannova Street, he devotes himself almost exclusively to new instruments, for which clients – mostly from abroad – wait several years. Since 2020 he has worked with his son František, also a member of the Circle; the shop is run by his wife Marta.

From the start he has placed highly at international competitions – among others Mittenwald 1993 and 1997 (2nd prize), Prague 1993 (1st prize, viola) and Manchester 1994 (3rd prize, cello). His greatest success came at the 2003 Cremona Triennale, where with two violins he won both 1st and 2nd prize, together with the awards for best tone and best workmanship. Since 2004 he has sat on juries (Náchod, Cremona, Sofia, Poznań, Paris, Pisogne, Indianapolis) and he co-organises the Prague International Violin Making Competition.

He is also interested in innovation: after the Amiata Summit of violin makers in Tuscany (2004) he built, together with Pavel Šporcl, the “blue violin” with a modified outline, a titanium bolt in the neck and carbon reinforcement, which Šporcl has played since 2006. His work has been featured in The Strad and Strings.