Biography
On the fifth of October 1957, the Russians put the world’s first satellite into orbit around the earth : Sputnik I…
A month later, I was born.
There is no actual proof of any cause and effect relationship between this event and my arrival on Earth, nor my being known from my youngest years as a dreamer… “Jean the Moon-Boy” they used to say !
Or there perhaps lies the reason why, in spite of all I’ve accomplished since my birth, nothing has turned out quite as I imagined…
I come from a farming background, close to nature, far from music. And yet at the age of fourteen, I had made my first musical instrument. I even had my own workshop though I never imagined that this might become my future career !
I was trained by a craftsman’s guild, the “Compagnon du Devoir et du Tour de France” and they gave me a respect for tools, a deep sense of the relationship between materials and craftsmanship and the quest for creativity firmly based on tradition. I was going to become a cabinet maker…
But life is full of unexpected twists and turns and at twenty one, I went back to being an apprentice but this time in the world of music and instrument making.
I have been successful in this craft largely thanks to my solid technical background but I discovered the full potential of my role as a luthier through communicating with musicians who became both clients and friends. If I had been told that my work would evolve to allow craft to be surpassed by the dynamics of the people I would meet, I would have laughed. But it is those dynamics which have enabled me to reach out towards ever-further possibilities…