Christopher Reuning

Christopher Reuning, violin maker, restorer, and expert, grew up in a musical family and began playing cello at age 7. At 12, he embarked on a violin-making apprenticeship at the House of Primavera in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To supplement his training, Chris traveled to Cremona, Italy to work with Virgilio Capellini and Alfredo Primavera. During these years, he also developed close associations with two important experts in violin identification, Dario D’Attili and later Charles Beare.

Chris managed and expanded his parents’ Ithaca, New York violin dealership and bought the business from them in 1984. Ten years later he moved to the current location in Boston’s South End. Reuning & Son Violins is now considered one of the world’s leading stringed instrument dealers and Chris, a leading expert in the history of the old master makers and in the identification of venerable antique violins.

Chris is a member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, an adviser to the North Bennett Street School Violin Making Department, and on the boards of the Boston Chamber Music Society and The Violin Society of America.