NVFA | The Hutchins Consort

NVFA

New Violin Family Association

In Memory of
Carleen Hutchins
(May 24, 1911 – August 7, 2009)

Carleen Maley Hutchins was an American former high school science teacher, violinmaker and researcher, best-known for her creation, in the 1950s/60s, of a family of eight proportionally-sized violins now known as the violin octet (e.g., the vertical viola) and for a considerable body of research into the acoustics of violins. She was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Welcome to the New Violin Family’s new home at HutchinsConsort.org! The Hutchins Consort is proud to be the new home of this remarkable gathering of scholars, musicians, teachers, scientists, luthiers and other persons who have an interest in both sharing and acquiring new information about the development of the New Violin Family.

In late 2007, Carleen Hutchins crafted an arrangement with the Hutchins Consorts’ Artistic Director, Joe McNalley, wherein the Hutchins Consort would merge the New Violin Family Association with their own organization, in an effort to preserve this important archive, and to assure that Carleen Hutchins’ life work and all of her important contributions to acoustical research continue to be made available to scientists and luthiers for the future.

It was Dr. Hutchins’ intention that the Hutchins Consort would become the caretaker of this vast archive of scientific papers, instrument molds, instruments, research findings, and other important materials. Since this merger was completed in October 2009, the Hutchins Consort has been busy evaluating this archive and determining what portion of it should be conveyed on to Stanford University, who have offered to make this a part of their permanent archive collection in their Music Department.

Part of this will be the digitizing of many of these materials, allowing them to be accessible to the rest of the world. This project would have made Carleen very happy, as she was determined that her scientific findings be shared with all luthiers and scientists, so that they might carry on this important work for the future.

We are making an invitation to all previous members of the New Violin Family Association to join us in this work, and to become members of the Hutchins Consort Association, and play a role in the future of the New Violin Family!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.