“How do you make a cello?” Lecture & Concert
with faculty and guest artists
“How do you make a cello?” lecture and concert by luthier John R. Waddle, MacPhail faculty Jacqueline Ultan, Beatrice Blanc, and Sue Ruby, with guest Buffalo Community Orchestra principal cellist Dr. Andrew Burgdorf.
Selections will include works by several Minnesota composers.
Guest Artists
Dr. Andrew Burgdorf has been a family physician with Allina for the last 35 years and the charter principal cellist for 28 years with the Buffalo Community Orchestra (BCO) just west of Minneapolis. He began cello at age 10 with Minnesota Orchestra cellist Eric Wahlin. Since then, he has studied under Tanya Reminokova and Tony Ross. His current teacher & mentor is Jacqueline Ultan, who is expanding Andy’s repertoire in non-classical styles and improvisation. He keeps a few coins for good luck tossed in his cello case by casual spectators when he played on the streets in Jerusalem and Paris as a young teenager. Cello concertos with BCO have included the Vivaldi with his daughter, Amanda; the Saint Saens; the Dvorak; the Brahms Double 2nd movement with St. Cloud’s concertmaster, Marion Judish; and the Brahms Double 1st movement with violinist Erika Blanco. He will perform the Haydn C Cello Concerto with BCO in March 2024. Dr. Burgdorf plays Eric Wahlin’s 1790 Finnochi cello, now joined by the 2022 John R Waddle commissioned cello to be featured at the October 1st MacPhail special lecture/concert event.
John Waddle graduated from the Violin Making School of America in 1981, where his instructors included Peter Prier, Paul Hart, Jeff Robinson, and Chris DeGroot. He then worked in Peter Prier’s violin shop for one year before marrying a wonderful woman and moving to Los Angeles to join the workshop of Hans Weisshaar. After two years, John left L.A. to be a shop foreman at Davis Violin Shop in Minneapolis, where he remained for two years before opening his shop in St. Paul in March of 1986.
Along with radiologist Steven A., Sirr, MD, John has developed a unique expertise in CT scans of valuable stringed instruments. The results of our work together have been widely published in the scientific press, leading to new ways of examining rare instruments without causing damage.
John Waddle is a member of The Violin Society of America and the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers.
Dr. Andrew Burgdorf with John Waddle