Engineer-turned-violin maker plays role in Korea's musical instrument making history

Violin maker Lee Sung-yeol makes a violin part at his workshop in southern Seoul. / Courtesy of Lee Eun-shol

Passion for music leads Lee to become internationally recognized string instrument maker

By Hagit Gili Gluska

Lee Sung-yeol was a computer engineer for almost 20 years. One day, he decided to change his life course and become a violin maker. Well, it was not exactly like that. You will have to read the whole story.

He was born in Seoul to a father who was a Korean army officer and a mother who was a homemaker. When he was eight years old, his father died, his mother became poor and Lee's life changed. "I had dreams, but I realized later on that I had to work to help my mother," he said about his post-university years.

The ID card of Lee Sung-yeol when he was working as an engineer at CRAY Research becoming a violin maker / Photo by Hagit Gili Gluska

Having a passion as a child for supercomputers, he graduated university as a computer engineer and worked at the exclusive supercomputer company that operated the first supercomputer in Korea, CRAY Research. "Those were many years of joy," he remembered.

But years went by and computers became more and more common in every house in Korea and the work became extremely hard, Lee recalled. "We worked sometimes at nights and on weekends. There was no such thing as work-life balance and I became exhausted," he said.

He then found his escape in an old love: music. "I remembered that when I was young, I had the chance to listen one day to one of Bach's cello suites. It was magical and ever since then, I had a small dream that one day I could play at least one movement from this incredible piece."

Lee started playing the cello, joined an amateur orchestra, and little by little, his life became more focused on playing music and less about work. Still, the engineer inside of him took over. "Music gave me great joy, but more than that, the instruments themselves fascinated me and I wanted to build them."

At this point, he was already 43 years old, and married with two children. He knew that he could learn how to make violins in a professional manner only abroad, but leaving Korea was not an easy decision to make. "The one who helped me the most with this was my wife, who knows me more than anyone else. She said that my love for engineering and my love for music could make a great violin maker out of me. She encouraged me to go to Italy," he said.

"Years after, when I won international prizes, it made me happy mainly because I saw the happiness on her face. I think that for her, my winning prizes was some kind of a sign that she had helped me make the right choice," he continued.

He said goodbye to his family and friends in Korea and moved to Italy. The first years were not easy, as cultural gaps made life more complicated. He sometimes had moments of feeling humiliated, like when immigration officers yelled at him and treated him like a refugee.

But things got better as he adapted to Italian culture. Moreover, in violin making, he exceled. In the city of Cremona where the great Antonio Stradivari lived and worked more than 300 years ago, there are today many violinmakers, tools, books and antique musical instruments to learn from. There is also the international school of violin making, where Sung-Yeol graduated with the unbelievable final score of 100.

He did not stop there. During his stay in Italy, he won the first prize with one of his cellos at the Pisogne String Instruments Competition. Not many violinmakers get to win first prize while they are still in their training period. After his graduation, he worked as a restorer at Carlson & Neumann in Cremona, one of the most well-known violin workshops in Italy. He had the chance there to learn from the best experts in Italy and see many valuable instruments. And after five years, he came back to Korea. "Those were wonderful years. Surrounded with violins and violin makers, I felt like a child in a candy store."

Musical instruments and materials to make them are placed at the workshop of Lee Sung-yeol in southern Seoul. Courtesy of Lee Sung-yeol

Today Lee has his own workshop in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, where he has made and restored violins, violas and cellos for the last 12 years.

As to the strong connection between restoring old instruments and making new ones, he said, "Thanks to my work as a restorer, I can see good old instruments and learn from the good old makers. But not less significantly, I learn so much from the musicians about sound quality and apply this knowledge when I make new instruments."

After he came back from Italy, he also taught a course on the structure and history of violins in the music department of Seoul National University. He started his business by selling and repairing instruments for musicians that he knows personally and his reputation spread.

"In Korea, I estimate, more than 90 percent of the players prefer old instruments so it's not easy for contemporary makers to sell their new instruments. Many people believe that old is necessarily good, but from my experience as a restorer and as someone who saw many old instruments during my work, there are many of them that were made poorly, mainly mass produced in East Europe about 100 years ago, or old instruments with unknown origins. It may have been true to say that old instruments are usually better then contemporary instruments 30 years ago when there were not so many qualified violinmakers in Korea. In those days, most of the new instruments were poorly made instruments from factories," Lee explained.

"However, today there are many Korean violin makers who studied in Europe or America. They come back to Korea and make very high quality instruments. Therefore, I always recommend musicians who are looking for an instrument to examine the instrument, old or new, very carefully, for craftsmanship and sound quality, and not only for its age. My clients are the ones who understand that. Today, the old instruments that are still in a good condition are extremely expensive, so buying well-made contemporary instruments is much more affordable."

Lee has proven his high quality craftsmanship. During his work in Korea, he garnered international recognition when he won a silver medal with one of his cellos in one of the most important competitions for violin makers ― the Mittenwald String Instruments competition ― in Germany in 2018, and won the "special award for outstanding and unique entries" with one of his violas in the Beijing International String Instruments Competition.

He looks back humbly on the choices he made in his life. "I still don't know what will be the end of my story, but I feel lucky. Even though I had to give up some financial benefits at the time, I was able to fulfill my dream of making violins. Furthermore, I got to know new special friends, musicians and violin makers, which I wouldn't have had the chance to get to know otherwise," said Lee, who is still an engineer today, just with a different set of tools.

Born in Israel, Hagit Gili Gluska is a violin maker who changed her career after years of practicing law at the office of Israel's State Attorney. She studied the art of violin making in Italy and since then has worked in both Italy and Korea. She specializes in making violins, violas and cellos.