This is where I would like to introduce myself to you as crafter of instruments, creator of sounds and as a passionate painter.

Today, I put most of my working efforts into the building of classical instruments such as Cellos, Violins and Violas, parts of which have been award-winning for their quality and sound. I am proud to add that by now some of my Cellos have found their place in well-known orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or the Beethoven Orchestra from Bonn. My instruments have always been inspired by my visionary expectations toward sound, by the ideas and needs of my customers, lead by my inner knowledge of the relation of the shape in reference to the sound, my curiosity to discover and try new techniques and last but not least my wish to craft an instrument that will contain all the potentialities I am looking for and that will thus satisfy me, being a creator of sound.

So this is how my story goes:

I was born on August 21th 1951 in Altenahr, Germany

Right behind my parents house flows the river Ahr. I believe, much of my calling and my career are due to this circumstance. Water is and has been the most basic music in my life, wich is inspiring my handcrafting as well as my painting.

It was not before 1970, when I had turned 19 years old, that I stared my first private studies on a musical instrument: the transverse flute. I kept hiking along the river Ahr, playing my flute like in conversation with nature and the water.

By 1973, after dropping out apprenticeships as mechanical engineer and draftsman, I took up studying painting at the academy of arts, Düsseldorf. This is were art and music start to blend into each other, while I spent many hours playing the flute at the academy, as t was wished and supported by my professor.

Until today this mixture is characteristic for my paintings as well as for my instruments, they are tone colours and colour-tones! Just by being playful, new Paintings and Soundscapes evolve. Out of curiosity I experimented with tone, wich is why I like to call myself a creator of sounds, and thats what until today still leads me to develop new instruments.

Shortly before I started attending the academy in Düsseldorf, I moved to the small village of Winterscheid, located in the Eifel-Hills in the very west of Germany, where I buildt my first instrument, a replica of an indian sarangi. Without TV, Phone or radio, far off from the next city I was able to focus on my painting, music and inner calling.

In 1978, while traveling to sweden with my brother, we stopped overnight in Evienhausen, a small town near Bramsche in the north of Germany. The owner of a local shop for celtic instruments was “accidently” looking for a successor. I took on the challenge without much hesitation and found myself building celtig crwths (also known as chrotta, hrotta, crowd) for anthroposophic music-therapists. I took up cello lessons in that period of time. So this is what I`d refer to as my calling, my self-educating start into instrument crafting.

By 1980, meanwhile married and father of a small daughter, me and my family plus shop moved back to  Winterscheid, where I have lived and worked since. From that day on I have employed myself with classical Cellos, Violins, Violas, in a manner of developing each model from within myself. This is how I gained skills in crafting, step by step.

During the last 27 years many new instruments came into being. Some evolved out of therapeutic or pedagogic interests, gained from and offered by various surrounding practitioners, like the “Wichtelgeige” (crudely translated: Imp`sViolin), chrowd, bowed-psalter and others.

The Campanula shurly counts as one of my most important developments. It was based on the task to develop an instrument following the outlines of a plant.

Between my work in the shop I am still drawn to my paintings. Just like crafting instruments, it has become an essential part of my life, my being and expression of the music within myself.