Recently, famous Bulgarian luthier Apostol Kaloferov turned 70. His birthday was marked with a concert with attendance of internationally-acclaimed musicians who played instruments made at the atelier of the master located on the outskirts of Sofia.

Kaloferov inherited the craft from his father who was winner in a few international competitions and emerged as a European and world name in the trade.

"My childhood was dominated by the occupation of my dad”, Apostol Kaloferov goes back in time. “As a child while playing outside the atelier, my father’s customers would say, ‘Ivan’s son will probably become luthier one day’. I graduated the School ofWoodworking and Interior Architecturewith a major in Woodworking, and later the Academy of Arts. This background has been very helpful in my professional growth as luthier.”

Kaloferov contends that the selection of the material is of paramount importance for the sonority of the instrument. Sine 17-18 c., the time of Stradivari and the great masters of Cremona, the sycamore has emerged as the best choice for the instrument’s bottom plate while the top plate which is also the membrane is made of spruce. We have to note here, that in the Balkans these materials have high acoustic merits due to the climate and soils. For his pieces Apostol Kaloferov uses special supplies of spruce from the Rhodope Mountains and of sycamore from the Balkan Range. The luthier explains that to obtain quality material trees should have grown at 1000 m above sea level, in thick forests where they vegetate for about 3-4 months a year, and maturing of timber takes as long as 100 years.

"It is not for nothing that lutherie or violin-making is sometimes called violin-building. At the end of the day, the violin is a small piece of architecture: a miniature chamber acoustic box built by sticking to the principles of architecture, with the arch being central to the construction. The vaults of the bottom and the top are reminiscent of Roman bridges. Imagine this small, gentle instrument weighing 200-300 g but expected to endure pressure that comes to the staggering 28 kg! The life of the instrument is very long; it survives several generations and should for this reason be made with great care and love.”

In his youth Apostol Kaloferov was trained by renowned luthier Jean Bauer.

"I was lucky to have had an internship withan internationally-acclaimed luthier. We met in 1972 at the Queen Elizabeth international competition in Liege, Belgium. He was the chairman of the jury and I won a silver medal because no first prize was awarded. He then invited me for an internship. There I learned about the traditional way of violin making while my father’s style was more innovative. My chance was that I could combined the two trends in violin making and this is behind my success.”

Apostol Kaloferov has made more than 250 instruments. Most of them have been bought by clients in France. Leading Bulgarian violinists Georgi Badev and Angel Stankov own his violins. The luthier’s son Ivan has graduated the Antonio Stradivari institute in Cremona, Italy. „I have always said I have been a happy son to have inherited this profession, and my happiness has doubled because my own son has succeeded me and has continued the family tradition”, luthier Apostol Kaloferov told us.

English Daniela Konstantinova