Family story

Three generations of the Mare family — two luthiers and one cellist

July 7, 2026

In Reghin, the “city of violins,” the name Mare is bound to three generations who listen to wood in different ways. Vasile and Aurelian build it. Eduard plays it. It is the same story, told in three voices.

Vasile: from apprentice to master

It all begins in 1970, when Vasile Mare joins the Hora musical instrument factory in Reghin at the age of eighteen. He follows vocational school and evening high school alongside his work, learning the trade from the factory's experienced luthiers.

From 1982 he devotes himself exclusively to building master instruments — an instrument is no longer made in series, but one at a time, with patience. In more than four decades at the bench he has built over 500 instruments — mostly violins, alongside some 100 violas and 50 cellos. Each one leaves the workshop with a certificate of authenticity — detailed documentation and colour photographs.

The wood is chosen with care and awaited with even more: resonance spruce for the tops, flamed maple for the backs, necks and ribs, ebony for the fittings — naturally seasoned for at least 15 years before the chisel ever touches them.

Vasile sums it all up in a single sentence, repeated countless times to visitors of the workshop: “I never wanted to expand. The moment you do, it is no longer a master instrument, it is series production. You have to put soul into every instrument for it to be good, to sound beautiful.”

In 1990 he became a founding member of the Association of Luthier Artists of Romania, and the diplomas from Mittenwald (1993, 1997, 2001, 2005), Cremona (1994) and Reghin (2001) confirm, year after year, a craft recognised well beyond the borders of the town.

Aurelian: the second generation

Born in 1981, Aurelian grew up literally surrounded by wood and luthier's tools. He finished the school of sculpture in Târgu-Mureș and joined his father's workshop as an apprentice, gradually mastering every stage of construction — from choosing the wood to the final coat of varnish.

Recognition came in 2012, when he took 1st place for viola at the International Luthiery Competition in Reghin — the second generation's first major international distinction. Diplomas of his own followed from Mittenwald, Cremona, Reghin, Sofia and Veszprém, gathered between 2005 and 2022, confirming a steady path rather than an isolated result.

Today, Vasile and Aurelian both work in the Reghin workshop — father and son, two master luthiers under the same roof.

Eduard: the generation that plays

With Eduard, Aurelian's son, the family story takes an unexpected turn. He is the first Mare generation who does not build the instruments, but plays them — a cellist, not a luthier.

His bond with the workshop remains, however, just as close as his grandfather's and his father's: the 7/8 cello “Eduard,” built in 2023 especially for him, came straight out of his grandfather's workshop. It is an instrument made with the same care for wood and sound as any other in the collection, but with a different destination — not a client's display case, but the hands of the grandson.

This is the Mare family today: three generations in music, two pairs of hands that build and one that plays. Every instrument that leaves the workshop on Sălciilor Street carries the same philosophy — wood patiently seasoned for years, worked by hand, with soul.