History
Rafael Carrabba Violins, Inc. was established in 1985 when Rafael bought the business of his former employer, David Saunders. From the age of twelve Rafael worked in the Saunders shop, sweeping floors, grinding bow rosin, polishing violins and, perhaps most importantly, absorbing all the information he could.
During summer breaks from high school, Rafael apprenticed in Chicago with Kenneth Warren & Son, one of the most renowned violin shops in the United States. Upon graduating he worked at Warren’s for an additional year and then moved on to William Moennig’s shop in Philadelphia.
Rafael spent the following four years in London where he worked for the world’s greatest violin expert, Charles Beare. He then returned to Chicago where he worked for Carl Becker. Rafael relocated to London once again to work for Charles Beare for an additional four years then, finally, settled back home in Seattle.
With over forty years in the business, Rafael has become an expert at identifying instruments. He is particularly skilled in appreciating subtleties of the Italian, English, French and German schools of violin making.
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Little Seattle Shop Puts Zing Back In A Stradivarius
In the rarefied, even exotic, world of string-instrument repair, restoration and creation, you count such meccas as Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and London. That's about it - or was.
But now Seattle.
Good gawd - Seattle?
Well, why not? It is a city that produced the late Emmett Day, whose woodcrafting of custom furniture was the work of near-genius. There is Bill Gates, whizzeroo of the computer galaxy.
There have been celebrated aeronautical technocrats and scientists, Nobel winners, artists, medical pioneers, ad infinitum.
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