From 6th to 28th of June the “Sale del Podestà” are the seat of the Exhibition of the Master violinmaker “Francesco Bissolotti,a life for violinmaking”.
The exhibition, which has been organized under the patronage of the municipal authority, starts on Saturday 6th of June at 5pm.
Master Bissolotti will be presented by the music critic of “ La Provincia ”Mr. Roberto Codazzi., while the preparation is under the supervision of Mr.Roberto Dellanoce. The exhibition will be open in the evenings and some collateral events will allow a wide public to visit it. Miss Su Qi, graduated in violin in Beijing, will play during the inauguration.
At 9 p.m. in the courtyard of the “Sale del Podestà” there will be a concert by Miss Rena and miss Ami Yokoyama, pupils of Mrs Laura Gorna, the wife of Maestro Salvatore Accardo. The “Compagnie teatrali Soresinesi” will read some poems referring to the music.

Francesco Bissolotti was born in Soresina ( in the province of Cremona) on 2nd of April 1929. He was attracted by wood and its transformations since he was a child. During his childhood he attended the shop of his uncle, a cabinet maker, and then , in the 40s as a teenager, he went to Castelleone to the shop of a wood carver, so he learned the techniques of wood sculpting and of carving. With a master of Cantù he learned the techniques of cabinet making and of inlaying and became a very good interpreter of this art when he was still very young.
The passion for music and particularly the study of violin approached him to the art of violin making.
From 1957 to 1961 he attended the “Scuola di Liuteria” (school for violin makers) in Cremona where he obtained his diploma with full marks. He was a pupil of some of the most important and most praised violin makers of the 20th century, like Sgarabotto, Ornati, Garimberti e Sacconi and he maintained with them very strong relations for more than ten years.
With Mr. Sacconi he rearranged the Stradivarious relics of the Museum of organology of Cremona, nowadays the Stradivarious Museum. In 1965 the Mayor of Cremona Mr. Vernaschi entrusted him with the charge of curator of the Stradivarious Museum and he kept the task until 1979. From 1961 to 1982 he was a teacher at the International School of Liuteria, where he taught a large number of students, most of which foreigners.
In 1973 he founded the A.C.L.A.P., Association of Professional Craftsmen Violinmakers; the statute of the Association was to spread the process of violin making according to the classic method of Cremona.
Such making method, which had been the heritage of the ancient violinmakers of Cremona, had been lost but Master Sacconi had recovered it and taken it back in evidence among the makers of stringed instruments with the help of his pupil, Mr. Bissolotti.
Mr.Bissolotti has made and still makes every sort of stringed instruments. He has always worked in collaboration with his four sons and a few trusted pupils. Many soloists and very good musicians play his instruments.
A man of a lively mind he has always been attracted by research and experimentation, but always in the tracks of the great and experimented tradition of violin making of Cremona.
His workshop, where he works with his sons, is in Cremona, Piazza S.Paolo5

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:: GALLERIA FOTOGRAFICA: L'ARTE DI BISSOLOTTI ::

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