The history of the workshop

The Violin Workshop has been in existence in Kyjov since 1997. It engages in making, repairing and selling string instruments and musical accessories. It is at the same time a centre for specially training apprentices, which is in this form a unique institution in the Czech Republic.

The workshop continues the individual violin-making activities of its founder, ing. Pavel Celý (born in 1950), who finished his training as a violin-maker in Luby u Chebu in 1969 and as a forest engineer in 1984. At present the activities of the workshop are carried out by Ing. Pavel Celý, Tomáš Pospíšil as a journeyman (finished training in 1998), and apprentices Jiří Čarek, Dominik Matúšů and Pavel Celý Jr.

The workshop cooperates externally with sculptors Jiří Netík and Miroslav Minks and painter Marek Trizuljak in, for example, making copies of historic instruments.

The violin workshop in Zlin is an open workshop, where both the shop and the production of instruments is situated. Because the workshop is situated in a busy place in the town-centre, passers-by and customers can witness the making of new instruments.

As the master, the journeyman and apprentices work together, the experience is continually passed down to the younger violin-makers.