A luthier in Milan

Ilaria Cazzaniga is a professional luthier specializing in the making, setup and restoration of bowed string instruments — violins, violas and cellos. She graduated with honors from the Civica School of Lutherie in Milan. She holds degrees in Physics and in Conservation and Diagnostics for Cultural Heritage, and is listed in the Ministry registers as Expert in diagnostics and in sciences and technology applied to cultural heritage (Level 2).

Ilaria Cazzaniga, Pellegrino Rossi St. 5, 20161 Milan - Tax Code CZZLRI92A61E063Y - VAT No. 11268490965

Working wood to make room for creativity and bring music to life is a great passion that has grown and matured along with her. Her unstoppable curiosity has also led her down the path of scientific research applied to lutherie, a field where craftsmanship and science meet.

Activities and workshop

She works in Milan, in a shared artisan workshop with other young luthiers, a collective, evolving project known as LiutaiLab.
Here she focuses on maintenance, repair and restoration of bowed string instruments, with particular attention to restoration, fitting and optimizing the acoustic set-up of violins, violas and cellos.

Partnerships

Since 2019 he has worked with master Carlo Chiesa, with whom he completed a training internship right after graduating thanks to the “One School One Job” project promoted by the Cologni Foundation. They currently work together on projects dedicated to the study and enhancement of the historical heritage of bowed string instruments.
Between 2022 and 2024 he collaborated with the Tarisio auction house, handling instrument preparation and drafting catalogues at the Berlin office.

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Specializations

She has particularly specialized in the fitting and setup of bowed string instruments, a field in which she refined her skills thanks to active collaboration with the Carlson & Neumann workshop in Cremona, one of the international benchmarks for the restoration of historic instruments.

Musical instrument diagnostics

From 2020 to 2022 she was a lecturer in chemistry and materials science for violin making at the Civica School of Milan and assistant to the chair of bowed string instrument making at the Piedmontese Academy of Violin Making in Turin.
She works in imaging diagnostics, with high-resolution photography in visible and infrared light, and in X-ray computed tomography (CT scan).