CERTIFICATE COURSE

Short courses are useful for continuing professional development, refreshing your knowledge, or exploring a new area of interest. Many of our annual degree programmes are split into courses or modules that can be studied individually.

A new violinmaking Academy for global generation

Program Course

Make the most of your precious time!

Now you can attend individual courses in Academia Cremonensis together with other professionals, without being joined to a beginner class. This way you will be able to reach the challenging course objectives in time, and you will also have time to ask all the questions you want! You will find that what our teachers want most is to receive increasingly complex challenges from our Certificate course students.

All courses are designed for professional luthiers or graduate students who want to perfect themselves by updating their construction techniques and have no age limits. These are challenging courses for those who, despite being working independently, have not yet acquired total mastery of materials and equipment. In addition to the Master teachers of Academia Cremonensis, there will be external teachers highly specialized in specific areas, offering the best academic preparation.

What are Certificate courses?

Academia Cremonensis offer a diverse range of subjects, including: Advanced Violin-Making, Bow-Making, Advanced Varnish Techniques, Business and Management, and many more.

This can benefit you in various ways:

– To access to Academia Cremonensis professional studies: try a sample of Academia studies, without commitment and for a very convenient price.

– Cremona life: learn about life and start building your network of contacts as a professional in the Capital of Violinmaking.

– Extras: Looking at great Masterpieces of the Italian Tradition, meeting collectors, musicians and dealers from all over the world who visit regularly the Academia.

– Subject: try out an area of study, including new ones that you haven’t had the chance to study at another violinmaking school.

– Dialogue to Master instrument-makers and Lecturers: hear from and be able to speak to subject experts.

– Teaching: experience the different teaching methods used by Academia Cremonensis teachers.

Search below by subject area to find the Certificate course/s you would like to apply to. Once you have found the course you like, click “Apply” to complete the application form.

Course Details

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) for Design and Violinmaking Workshop

Unlike the ancient one, modern Violin-making has defined measures and proportions established for the violins. However, there are variables that can still be modified to blend the proportions of ancient violins with the personality of each luthier. This course teaches how to make your own violin mold in CAD, illustrating how the drawing program can be useful in the field of violin-making.

Violin Ribs Advanced Technique Workshop

This advanced course of the violin ribs follows is an intensive course that describes this particular phase of violin-making at 360 degrees. To obtain a professional result, it is necessary to thoroughly study the behaviour of the wood, the acoustics, the tools, and the practical technique down to the smallest detail.

Violin Neck and Scroll Advanced Technique Workshop

Nobody can think of creating a violin scroll simply by imitating someone else’s work. Academia Cremonensis has designed a professional course dedicated to those who want to bring scroll sculpture to a professional level. We follow basic sculpture modules on clay and wood, to help identify the aesthetic principles that regulate the balance of the scroll, then studying examples of the style of the Great Luthiers of the past, each student will create his own personal working method.

Violin Fingerboard Advanced Workshop with elements of geometry

Whether you are a restorer or a professional luthier, you will understand the importance of this course. The players continually slide their fingers along the fingerboard, and in this course, you will learn the technique to prepare and finish the ebony fingerboard and make it as resistant and shiny as possible.

Wooden joints with a concentration in use of the Glues

A perfect joint must last for hundreds of years, but at the same time it must be able to come undone when a restorer finds it necessary. Academia Cremonsis teachers have created a professional course that takes you from the correct use of planes and clamps, to understanding and exploiting all the potential of natural glues.

The Perfect Modern Neck Set

This intensive course was designed for Professional Luthiers who have not yet found a perfect technique to set the neck in a few simple steps.

Violin Body Advanced Workshop with a concentration in Archings, Purflings and Effeholes

The intensive course on the violin body aims to have each participant create a violin top and back in all the details, and leaves plenty of room for all questions and clarifications, on woods, procedures and equipment.

Effeholes Advanced workshop with elements of design in the Italian Tradition

The Effe-holes are certainly the element of the violin that leaves more room for interpretation and this Advanced Course teaches, also many aspects of design linked to stylistics and acoustics.

Violin Bassbar Advanced workshop with elements of Acoustic

For the realization of a professional violin bassbar Academia Cremonensis has designed a specific course with extreme attention to this topic. The position, the type of material and many other aspects affect the acoustics and give the right support to the violin top.

Violin Purfling Advanced Techniques

An intensive purfling course for professionals, in which to study one of the most important details of the violin from an aesthetic but also structural point of view. After some practical tests you will be able to purfle a violin top.

Fluting of Top and Back and Profiles of the Edges

In the method used by the Masters of Academia Cremonensis, the fluting and theedges play a fundamental role in defining the lines of the violin; in this course you follow every step, from roughing to cleaning the fluting and the edges in a professional way.

Finishing and Cleaning Advanced Techniques

Part of the success of the varnish is how the wood of the violin has been cleaned and polished. In this course you will learn how to use the light and the shadows to notice the parts to be finished and the different techniques to eliminate any defect, even the most imperceptible ones!

Violin Bridge and Soundpost Workshop

This intensive module has the intention of making the participant create a soundpost and a bridge in a simple and practical way, offering solutions to improve the acoustics of the violin as well.

Pegs and Endpin Installation

Although it seems a simple job, many violins on the market do not have the pegs worked correctly, it follows that the violin is very difficult to tune, and that even the violin is damaged over time. In this advanced course you will learn step by step how to shape the shaft of the pegs and use the specific tools.

Modern Oil Varnish Techniques workshop

Oil varnish attracts many luthiers due to its undeniable acoustic qualities. Academia Cremonensis has created a course where you can test different types of oil varnishes and apply the one you prefer on a violin in a professional way.

Fundamentals of Acoustics

This advanced module of Acoustic Physics is very useful for those who want to learn more about the issues related to the sound of violins, using simple schemes and learning how to use intuitive tools such as the Lucchi Meter.

Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawing techniques for Violinmaking

Traditional Styles of Italian Violinmakers

This course dedicated to professionals was created in collaboration with traders and estimators of ancient and modern instruments in order to offer a very pragmatic presentation of the most important schools of Italian violin-making. It is a course focused on the characteristics of the work, rather than the private lives or family affairs of luthiers, making it a unique course of its kind.

Violinmaking Tools - Maintenance and special tools workshop

This course allowed to increase the efficiency in the workshops of the many professional luthiers who took part in it. Buying high quality tools is just a good habit, knowing how to use them and keep them at their best allows you to use them to improve your everyday work.

Tone Wood - History and Technology

This intensive course traces the choices of the woods used by the Great Luthiers of the past, and helps participants to recognize the various species, appreciating their qualities and understanding their defects. In the world there are few real experts in resonance wood, and the course is held by one of them, who alternates scientific explanations with personal experiences obtained in over 20 years of research in the forests of the Balkans and the Alps.

Violin and Bow making professional Maintenance

In this professional course, you will improve your violin varnish cleaning technique, try out different ways to polish a fingerboard, perform maintenance works on a bow, and be guided in choosing the right combination of strings for a particular violin.

Fine Violins Market and Management of Related Companies

This course shows professionals what are the best opportunities to exploit in the violin market, starting from Trade-Shows, Auctions and understanding in advance how the trends in the trade of ancient and modern musical instruments change.

Varnish and wood of the violin focused on chemistry and technology

This course offers an introduction to the chemistry of the most used varnishes in violin making and to wood technology.

Wood carving and clay modeling workshop

Academia Cremonensis has created a sculpture module for the many professional luthiers who feel the need to develop new and more personal shapes. Clay has the intrinsic quality of bringing out new forms from each craftsman, freeing himself from rules and formalities. Sculpting in soft Stone Pine wood (Pinus Cembra) is the second phase of the course, and will make it easy to transport the ideas acquired from clay onto wood.

Teachers

Giovanni Colonna

Founder/ Board Chair

Nicholas Gamberini

Managing Director

Luca Maria Gallo

Taster course and Certificate course Teacher

Online Application

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