Tuning for tomorrow: Malaysia's first violin maker carves out a rare craft

Hunched over his workbench, Tan Chin Seng shaves the wooden top plate of a violin, removing thin layers with slow, deliberate strokes. The work is meditative, out of the public eye.

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For Tan, transforming raw wood into a violin is a labor of artistry and love. The 45-year-old is Malaysia's first professional violin luthier, or maker of string instruments like violins, cellos and guitars. Over the past decade, he has earned international accolades. Now he mentors a new generation of makers in a field still little known in Southeast Asia. Traditionally, violin luthiers are associated with Europe, where masters like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri shaped the modern violin.

The craft has spread globally, with thriving communities now in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Tan's path to violin-making was unconventional. A computer science graduate who doesn't play the violin, he was helping in his family's food business and co-owned a music school. In 2010, a trip to China to restore an aging violin sparked a deeper fascination with the instrument's construction. Curiosity led him to apprentice with Chinese luthier Han Zhao Sheng, and he built his first violin.

"After completing the first violin, I knew this craft was for me," Tan said. "There's woodworking, carpentry, artistic design. There's chemistry, acoustics, physics-everything about violin-making, I like it. Turning wood into music is just amazing."