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Violin Maker’s Talent Benefits Music Students at Appalachian

Violins and violas made by the late Charles W. Gadd of Hendersonville were featured during a recent recital at ASU. Students in the Mariam Cannon Hayes School of Music performed one of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos during the recital held to dedicate the Charles W. Gadd Instrument Collection. Gadd’s widow, Frances Gadd, donated nine violins and five violas crafted by her husband to the music school. Performing in the recital were (from left) Page de Camarat, Josh Helms, Greg Sipek, Amanda Roberts, Jemike Crayton and Nami Hashimoto. Seated is Frances Gadd. Appalachian photo by University Photographer Mike Rominger

Charles W. Gadd worked for 39 years in General Motors’ automotive safety and research laboratories. A talented engineer, he began GM’s automotive crash injury research program in biomechanics. Gadd also developed a device that “steers” catheters to otherwise inaccessible locations in the body.

He was also accomplished in music and craftwork, and his widow has donated nine violins and five violas that Gadd crafted to the Marian Cannon Hayes School of Music at ASU.

“He made his first violin as a teenager,” Frances Gadd of Hendersonville said of her late husband. “He was taking violin lessons and had found a book on violin making in his local library’s rare book collection. He wanted to try to build one.”

Gadd had a gift for design and intricate craftwork. In 1933, he won a four-year college scholarship from the Fischer Body Craftsman’s Guild for a miniature of a Napoleonic coach that he built. The national competition, created as a talent search and recruiting tool for GM, financed Gadd’s education at MIT, from which he graduated in 1937.

Charles Gadd played violin in his high school and college orchestras. Building instruments, however, took a sideline to his college and professional career.

“The day after he retired, he was working on his violins,” Frances Gadd said. As an engineer, he was always searching for the woodworking methods that would yield the best sound, she explained.

“He didn’t make them to sell. He made the instruments as part of his research into making the perfect instrument—or as close to perfect as possible,” Frances Gadd said.

Once he completed one violin, it would become the basis for improvements in his construction of subsequent violins, she explained.

Gadd won several awards from the Southern California Association of Violin Makers and the Violin Makers Association of British Columbia for his workmanship and the tonal quality of his instruments.

Gadd’s instruments are proving to be invaluable gifts to students majoring in music education and to the music school.

“This is saving us many thousands of dollars that we would otherwise have had to spend on new instruments for our methods students and our violin and viola studios,” said Eric Koontz, an instructor in the Hayes School of Music.

Music education majors are required to know something about all the instruments that might be used in public school orchestras and bands, Koontz explained. The music school provides the instruments used in those methods classes.

“We provide training for those students so they can understand the basics of what their students will need,” Koontz said. “This gift means we can expand our string methods classes and replace instruments that are in poor condition.”