My Bows

    Ultimately, modern work must be of a very high level because a modern bow maker competes with mass-produced bows, with his peers, and also with every great bow maker who has ever lived. I take that challenge personally and go to extremes to find the best materials available at any cost. The attributes of my bows will vary due to the variable nature of pernambuco, but based upon the inherent qualities within each piece of wood, I make the best bow that I can possibly make.

The player is also a determining factor in making a bow. I encourage a player's involvement in the building process. A bow is a link between player and instrument. By listening to your instrument and assessing the features of the bow you currently play, I can usually choose pernambuco in advance which will enhance the better attributes of your particular instrument, while taming some of its excesses. This process is a rewarding one; I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best players in the world in the last 15 years in New York, and I look forward to building my new bows on the knowledge accumulated while in the trenches.

My bows are currently being played by a variety of people in a diversity of venues. Ron Oakland, concertmaster of American Ballet Theater, has two of my bows. Toby Appel, Julliard professor and NPR contributor, plays my bow, as does the co-principle cellist of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, Jerry Grossman. Cenovia Cummins, the concertmaster of Riverside Symphony, plays my bow; Hollis Taylor, jazz and swing violinist, has two of my bows. My bows are in sections in the Metropolitan Opera, City Ballet of New York, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, The New Jersey Symphony, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, and are in the hands of numerous talented jazz and classical free-lancers throughout the country and in Europe.