A native of Oxfordshire, England, Andrew Carruthers worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Research Labs in California before deciding to follow his passion for building stringed instruments. Returning to the UK, he studied at the Welsh School of Violin Making and Repair, near Cardiff. After graduating, he joined the restoration workshops of Bein and Fushi in Chicago to apprentice under the guidance of master cello restorer, Russell Wagner. In 1996, he opened his own workshop in Santa Rosa, California, providing restoration services to the violin trade.  Since 2015, all of his work  has been devoted to building new instruments for clients across the US and in Europe. Andrew’s particular pleasure in violin making is exploring the tonal possibilities of mixing different woods with different instrument models. He has been awarded Silver Medal for Cello Tone (2014) and a Merit for Cello Tone Certificate (2016) at the VSA Competition. 

Most recently, Carruthers has been pursuing more community and collaborative projects, such as “The Redwood Violin,” “Violinabox,” and “Off-Beat Violins.”