Completed January 2022

This violin was made and coincidentally named just before the South Pacific island nation was battered by a deadly tidal wave last winter. I lived in Tonga for six months after dropping out of college for a time. I met a rather rambunctious Scottish man there who would drag any fool (i.e., me) whom he could find deep into the many unexplored limestone caves in the country. He was also an accomplished fiddler and mandolin player. I was thinking of him when I named this fiddle.

Tonga would be a very difficult place to make or play the violin, as large swings in humidity can wreak havoc with wooden instruments, swelling and shrinking the wood and constantly pulling them out of tune and stressing joints and edges. Successful soloists, who travel the world over, frequently find their valuable antique violins in need of repair or adjustment, and sometimes discover that their multi-million-dollar, 300-year-old Strads just don’t sound as good in humid Singapore as they did a few days earlier in dry Denver. 

Making exact copies of old master violins is considered an honorable and highly skilled accomplishment, and many soloists have commissioned such instruments for travel, as a new violin can sound just as good while better withstanding the climate shifts.