Set of 3 replicas of Schonbeck “triangular cellos” (2018): 12” x 26” / 32” x 54” / 36” x 72”

1/2" plywood, poplar, piano & zither pins, eye hook, brace, screws, latex paint, piano wire

Gunnar Schonbeck was one of the longest-tenured professors at Bennington College, and an enthusiastic proponent of instrument-building as an essential aspect of music education. By the time he’d retired, he and his students had built hundreds of instruments, about one hundred of which are now installed in a playable exhibit at Mass MoCA.

I was commissioned by Bennington College to build replicas of an instrument which exhibit curator Mark Stewart referred to as the “triangular cello”. These instruments vary in size, but are proportionally equivalent. They are monochords with roughly triangular resonators mounted to longer pieces of wood, which serve as both neck and endpin. The smallest is dark blue, the mid-sized is orange, and the largest is red. Resonators are plywood with a pine face, necks/endpins are poplar.