Peter Purich Part 1: Luthier, Innovator, Multi-Instrumentalist, Educator

Peter Purich is an innovative violin maker known for his unique personalized chinrest design. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist who plays in many different styles, and a dedicated violin and viola pedagogue. Because this conversation was extra-long it has been divided into two episodes. Part 1 delves into his development as an instrument maker and innovator, and as a creative musician. He shows and describes some of his innovations with chinrest design. The episode ends with some improvisation and some great parenting advice! Part 2 will continue with a lot of specifics about playing and teaching the violin, and he shows some of his inventive instrument designs, his unique shoulder support, and some great wisdom. I have added timestamps below, and like all these episodes this is available both as a podcast and a video, and the transcript will be published to this same link: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/peter-purich Please support this podcast: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman Timestamps (00:00) Intro (01:29) Peter’s father and his start making instruments and bows (06:12) Peter’s trip to Europe, Vienna Philharmonic instruments (10:17) different kinds of woods, styles of violin bows (13:44) research on carbon fiber (19:25) Peter’s custom-made chin rests, vibrato, shifting, how to hold a violin (46:34) Peter’s pedagogy (49:30) Peter’s approach to improvisation and experiences with different styles and instruments (51:30) I Musici chamber orchestra in Montreal, Yuli Turovsky (54:30) Arthur Garami (56:27) Gerald Stanick (57:44) why it’s good to improvise with demonstrations (01:09:36) teaching students improvisation (01:11:59) parenting and Peter’s great advice