Updated June 18, 2025 at 11:25 AM PDT
The violin glows in its case in a Nashville apartment.
"It's golden sunshine," says luthier Amanda Ewing. Even before she started forming the block of spruce into an instrument, Ewing knew she didn't want it to finish it in more traditional ruddy hues. "That's not for me. I knew I wanted it to be golden. I knew I wanted it to feel like sunshine," she says.
Musician Anne Harris sits nearby. She has just released her eighth album, I Feel It Once Again, on which she plays the new violin. The Chicago-based singer-songwriter has spent decades weaving American folk-rock with Afrobeat, soul, blues, Appalachian spirituals and Celtic reels.
The golden violin is her second. "The violin I've been playing for pretty much my entire playing career — since I was 10 years old — was given to me by my mother," says Harris, 59, of her 1961 Roth violin. "She got it from a college student who was looking for some quick cash and I have been playing on that violin since then."
A historic commission
Harris commissioned the new violin from Ewing in early 2022 after coming across the luthier on social media. "I see this beautiful Black woman holding a violin," remembers Harris. She learned that Ewing was certified as the first Black woman violin maker — luthier — in the country. "I knew that I had found the baby mama of my future second violin," says Harris.
The professional collaboration is the first one to be recorded between two Black women.
But Ewing is quick to stress that it's the first recorded instance. "It's so important to say because it's recognizing that there are unsung heroes in the makers world who are Black and brown," she explains. Still, it's important to mark the historical nature of the commission because, "Hey, this is an industry that doesn't have a lot of women and doesn't have a lot of Black women. So the people who go on after us and look for individuals who look like them, they're going to find us."
A public debut on a storied stage
While the violin is featured on the new album, Harris saved its debut performance before a live audience for this Nashville visit. "I knew that I wanted the first public appearance to be on the on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry," she says. "I wanted the voice of that violin to really ring in those halls because I thought what an incredible coming out party for the instrument."
Ewing looked on as Harris performed with blues legends Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo'. "It was amazing to hear Anne's spirit come through the instrument," she says. "I believe when the player and the instrument come together it becomes a beautiful duo. I felt so good hearing it on that stage in Anne's hands."
But in that Nashville apartment, it was Ewing's hands that set Harris reflecting. "I had never in my life questioned the hands of the maker that made my instrument, and it just never occurred to me that they would be hands that would look like mine," Harris says. "Why did that never occur to me? This is what drives me to really want to bring this instrument and her story out into the world."
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