John-Eric Traelnes
Also Member of the Swiss Association of Violin- and Bow-makers (ASLA)
Born in the United States, where his Swiss mother and Norwegian father stayed for some years, he grew up in Switzerland where he developed an early passion for both music and wood. Three years after building his first string instrument at the age of fifteen, he entered the Chicago School of Violin Making where he obtained his diploma in 1984 after four years of study and work at the bench. Returning to the Old Continent, he spent the five following years in the workshop of Peter Benedek, a master violin maker in Munich. During this period he could further hone the skills needed to repair highly valuable instruments while participating in the day to day activities of a major workshop. He ended his stay in Germany after passing the Master Violin Maker's examinations in Mittenwald, a highly reputed school in Bavaria, and returned to Switzerland. 

There he opened his first workshop in the Rue Neuve 11 in Lausanne in 1989. Working alone at first, the need for co-workers soon became evident due to a growing number of clients. After seven years the small workshop under the roof of an old building became too small. All the tools, instruments and staff were transferred to number 9 in the same street, where a much larger and more luminous space had become available. The new workshop has become a meeting place for string players in Lausanne and the surrounding area.

Taking advantage of the available space in the workshop, four concerts are organized each year for the clients, thus building contacts between them, the musicians and the more intimate world of violin makers.