About

Emanuil Markov is a Bulgarian violin maker trained in Cremona. A violinist since the age of six, he makes new instruments in his own workshop in Bulgaria, in the tradition of the great Cremonese masters.

The beginning

From violinist to violin maker

Emanuil was born in 1988 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. From a very young age it was clear that he would become a musician, and at six he began his training as a violinist. In the summer of 2002, at the age of 14, his family moved to Watford, England, where he continued to study the violin with his teacher Paul de Keyser in London.

Between 2011 and 2015 Emanuil studied to become a violin teacher. During this time he visited a small violin maker’s workshop in his hometown of Plovdiv. Within the first minute he made a wish that one day he would make a violin himself. That wish became a determination – and the determination led him to Cremona, Italy, where his journey as a violin maker began.

Cremona

Trained in Cremona

In November 2017 Emanuil began his training at Academia Cremonensis, an academy dedicated to preserving the art and tradition of violin making. Next door is the Museo del Violino, where he could study – and be inspired by – the instruments of the great masters Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri.

He studied under Maestro Giovanni Colonna and graduated in June 2019 with the award for best student of the year. At the Academia he also worked with the masters Luca Maria Gallo, Nicholas Gamberini and Zhaoyang Liu.

As a violinist, Emanuil has always been fascinated by acoustics, and he took a course in violin acoustics with one of the world’s leading makers, Maestro Gregg Alf.

Experience

At the bench

After graduating, Emanuil joined the new making department at Amorim Fine Violins in Cremona, working alongside the world-renowned Maestro Luiz Amorim. In a year and a half there he saw many great original instruments and specialised in making copies, inspired by Luiz Amorim’s work.

In the summer of 2021 he opened his own workshop in Bulgaria, where he concentrates on making his own instruments. They are played by musicians around the world, and some are owned by the Canimex group.

Since the summer of 2022 he has also taught at Academia Cremonensis as a maestro, passing on parts of the making process. A teacher at heart, he loves sharing what he has learned on his journey as a luthier.

Timeline