Founder and teacher
A child art, Elisa Scrollavezza grew up close contact with her father Renato’s luthier business, from which she also naturally inherits a passion for art, antiques and a free and creative vision of existence to which his future will be shaped.
The decision to follow in her father’s footsteps professionally came at the age 18, with the choice to enroll in the course taught by him at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory of Music in Parma, attending the same time the violin class and later the music teaching class. Through that decision, Elisa is able engage with a group of gifted and passionate students, including Lorenzo Frignani, Marco Minnozzi, Barbara Morello and an international group of peers who open her horizons outside the strictly family context.
Graduating in 1991, Elisa started her own independent production but closely linked to the example of her father Renato, whom she also began to assist during courses. In the following decades and up to the present, Elisa plays a fundamental role in training generations of students, who often go on to establish themselves in turn as professional violin makers, and she is also in charge of all the complex organizational aspects of running the school. Since 1992, with the exit of the Violinmaking School from the Parma Conservatory, Renato and Elisa Scrollavezza have managed to ensure the continuity of a fragile but noble tradition until the moment , in 2006, the Municipality of Noceto offered the Violinmaking School the newly renovated premises of the Sanvitale Fortress on the occasion of the inauguration of the “Castle of Music.” From that moment on, Elisa teaches together with Andrea Zanrè and Renato until 2014, the year from which, due to latter’s advanced age, Elisa assumed the role of course director.
Meanwhile, the instruments made by Elisa meet with growing success in the Italian and international arena, particularly in Germany, the United States, and Japan. In 2001, Elisa Scrollavezza and Andrea Zanrè, together with Lorenzo Frignani and Marco Imer Piccinotti, participated in the founding of the Associazione Liuteria Parmense, which, in addition to managing the School of Violin Making in the years to come, is responsible organizing exhibitions and of participation in trade fair events with great success with the public: Cremona Mondomusica, the Frankfurt Musikmesse, Music China, Viola and Cello Festival in Kronberg, and events organized by the European String Teachers Association.
At the same time, Elisa was actively involved in organizing violin making masterclasses featuring some of the most important violin makers and restorers on the international scene, with whom Elisa had in turn come into contact by attending advanced workshops at the prestigious workshop in Oberlin, USA.
In 2002 Elisa opened the atelier Scrollavezza & Zanrè with Andrea Zanrè, where she is primarily involved in the construction of quartet instruments for a clientele of international principals and professional musicians. Side activities include rebuilding copy instruments, trading, restoration, and publishing specialized publications. In her work Elisa naturally continues her father’s style and methodologies, combining respect for the family tradition with her personal taste.
Passionate about sculpture, Elisa also tries her hand at making decorated instruments, working for well-known musicians including violinist Fabio Biondi.
In recent years, Elisa has given presentations and lectures at prestigious venues, including the Galleria Nazionale di Parma, the Violin Museum in Cremona, in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Colombia, the United States, and Canada at the biennial meeting of the Entente Internationale des Luthiers et Archetiers d’Art (EILA), which Elisa joined in 2010, the first Italian woman to join this prestigious organization. Elisa Scrollavezza is also president of the Associazione Liuteria Parmense and has served as a juror in violin making competitions.
Since 2006, Elisa has managed together with Andrea Zanrè the established violin-making studio located in the center of Parma and, following the death of her father Renato in 2019, has been in charge of preserving his memory and the substantial legacy consisting of instruments, documents and art objects collected over several decades. In this context, Elisa is curator of the Renato Scrollavezza Museum housed in the Castle of Music in Noceto.