The French-born luthier, whose instruments were played by leading soloists, has died aged 70
Violin maker Christian Bayon has died at the age of 70, his family announced on social media on Tuesday 29 September 2026. The French-born luthier was based in Lisbon and Amsterdam.
Bayon was born in Paris in 1955 and started making violins at the age of 21. Three years later, he won the ‘Bourse de la Vocation’ prize of excellence, after which he joined the workshop of Jean-Frédéric Schmitt in Lyon, working with acoustician Émile Leipp.
He worked as a restorer at Etienne Vatelot’s shop in Paris from 1976, before becoming Vatelot’s assistant in 1982. He set up his own atelier in Brittany in 1984 and moved to Lisbon, Portugal, in 1990. From 2021, he split his time between Lisbon and Amsterdam, where he opened his second workshop.
As a restorer, Bayon’s clients included Maxim Vengerov, Truls Mørk, Jian Wang, Augustin Dumay, Gérard Caussé, Torleif Thedéen and Adrian Brendel. He served as the luthier for the Stavanger Chamber Music Festival in Norway for eight years at the invitation of Mørk.
From 1997 he was a member of the International Society of Violin and Bow Makers (EILA). Musicians who played his instruments include Tedi Papavrami, Alina Pogostkina, Isabelle van Keulen, Vladimir Spivakov, Anthony Marwood, Michal Kaňka, Pavel Gomziakov, Tatiana Samouil, Silvia Simionescu and Liana Gourdjia, alongside many other soloists, educators and orchestral concertmasters throughout Europe.
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