Typically, a high-quality violin uses wood that has been aged and dried anywhere from a decade to 50 years. In other respects, it’s advancing in technology is creating an advantage. “We can produce large quantities of violins in a short period of time with a price lower than the international market,” Li says in an interview with Global Times. Fengling, for example, produces 120 different types of violins. In part, it’s accomplished by being able to supply whatever each market demands, from high-end instruments to affordable options. “It’s no easy thing to have Chinese-made “Western musical instruments” enter the overseas market,” Li remarked in a statement in 2018.īut, he and other local manufacturers gradually won over the American and European markets with reliable quality and delivery. “The policy has opened the door to the world for Chinese companies, providing a platform to learn from overseas advanced technology as well as promoting cultural exchange,” Li told Global Times in February 2023.īut, first they had to convince outside markets of their product.
The Chinese government’s policy of opening up business to the West benefited local manufacturers, and led to the quick development of the industry at the manufacturing level. Today, he’s chairman of Fengling Musical Instruments Co., the Town’s largest violin maker. By 1995, Li’s company went independent, and produced 60,000 instruments in its first year. The Huangqiao factory went from making accessories for makers in Shanghai, as a branch of the Shanghai Violin Factory, to producing their own instruments. In 1971, after establishing Huangqiao’s first factory, he crafted the very first violin in Huangqiao Town. Along with another businessman from the area, he brought that violin-making experience home in 1962. Now in his 70s, he was an apprentice violin-maker in Shanghai. Some of them came from Huangqiao, such as Li Shu. The latter was once China’s violin-making capital, and drew workers in the industry from far and wide. It was once best known for its sesame cakes.ĭuring the 1960s, there was a sudden spurt of violin-making in China, which led to the construction of factories in Beijing and Shanghai.
Huangqiao Town has a thousand-year-old history, with an old centre constructed during the rule of Emperor Shenzong of Northern Song Dynasty, between 10. Some companies also produce violas and cellos. In a city of about 200,000 residents, 30,000 work for violin companies, which number well over 230. Annual exports from the town are valued at about 1 billion yuan ($196,524,226.60 CAD). The instruments are shipped to markets in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and South Africa, among other regions. Of that total, annual export sales have reached 720,000, accounting for 53 percent of China’s violin exports. That staggering number makes it the world’s largest violin-making centre, supplying about 70 percent of China’s market, and about 30 percent of the global supply, according to local officials. More than 950,000 violins are crafted each year in the small Chinese city of Huangqiao Town, earning it the nickname the “Cremona of the East”.
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