Andrea Spada

I'm born in Italy, Faenza, where I started playing the cello and bass guitar. It is also where I accomplished my fine arts studies at the international school for artistical ceramic. This gave me a solid background on renaissance arts, as well as a quite deep understanding of sculpture, drawing and painting techniques.

My artistical biases are strongly rooted on the common grounds of the renaissance thoughts: pytagorean and natural mathematical principles, sacred geometry, alchemical simbology and alikes: in fact, I live luthiery not as a duty, but as a way for the self trascendence.

Those probably are the reasons for my preferences for the old school workflow: using almost only traditional hand tools, like gouges, handplanes and dividers, with very few technological departures (a bandsaw, a drill press, and my CAD), I try for a personal, artistically true and solidly honest approach.

Being a professional double bassist myself, with a quite large experience in both orchestral and contemporary repertoire, my first professional focus was the Double Bass; however, I work with the whole family of violins and viols, both as a maker and a restorer. And yes, as a player too.

I created many models of basses, for a wide range of aesthetic and musical environments and I created also a kind of portable bass, which I dubbed contrabassetto. I'm working now on a portable strings family concept - Reductio® - aimed for the needs of contemporary musicians.

My second favourite instrument, as a maker, is the viola... I had the chance to be a close friend, and apprentice, of a great master, Nilton Camargo, which was an outstanding violas maker. He shared many deep insights in regard his love and understanding of the violas mechanic, and helped me outlining and conceiving my first one, a personal modernization of an outstanding Gasparo da Salò model for a Lira da Braccio...