Juliet Pascal Glazer

JULIET GLAZER, then a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received funding in April 2022 to aid research on “Instruments of Value: Techne and Technoscience in the Making of Markets and Violins,” supervised by Dr. Kristina Lyons. This dissertation asks how the circulation of sensory expertise shapes the production of value in a segment of the contemporary Western classical music world. The project focuses on communities of makers and restorers of violin-family instruments on the United States East Coast and in Northern Italy. It draws on twelve months of multi-sited ethnographic research in Boston, New York City, and Cremona, Italy to examine how makers share craft knowledge with one another in their workshops and at violinmaking schools, industry events, and museum exhibitions. Part I of the dissertation follows craft knowledge flows. In Cremona, makers sometimes keep trade secrets because of the city’s competitive market and claim local violinmaking heritage to gain cultural and financial capital. On the East Coast, makers share craft knowledge more openly and claim innovative practices to gain cultural and financial capital. Part II of the dissertation examines sensory techniques violinmakers learn and use. It analyzes visual techniques makers use in their workshops, causal relations they draw between visual and aural experience, and linguistic strategies they use when collaborating with musicians to achieve desired sounds. This dissertation argues that music economies are composed of interdependent communities of practice with different forms of sensory expertise.