Vermont Violins: New England's Premier String Instrument Specialists — Est. 1994
South Burlington, VT · West Lebanon, NH · Serving students, educators, and professional musicians across the USA since 1994.
Who We Are
Vermont Violins was founded in 1994 by the husband-and-wife duo Oren Kronick and Kathy Reilly. Kathy Reilly is a professional violist and graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music — one of the most distinguished conservatories in the United States. That pedigree is not incidental. It is the architectural blueprint of everything Vermont Violins has become over three decades.
While most music retailers carry instruments as one category among many, Vermont Violins made a deliberate and defining choice: to specialise exclusively in the violin family. Violins, violas, cellos, double basses, and harps are not products on a shelf — they are instruments we have dedicated our professional lives to understanding, sourcing, handcrafting, restoring, and supporting.
From our flagship showroom and workshop in South Burlington, Vermont, and our second location at West Lebanon, New Hampshire, we serve every level of player — from the child beginning their first school rental, to the advancing student searching for a performance-grade upgrade, to the seasoned professional seeking a rare or restored instrument. We also ship nationwide across the continental United States, with a dedicated rental programme serving musicians coast to coast, including through our West Coast partnerships in Seattle, Washington.
Award-Winning. Nationally Recognised.
U.S. Small Business Administration — Small Business Exporter of the Year
Vermont District Office Award · Presented June 2025 · Recognising global growth and sustainable innovation
Vermont Violins holds Forest Stewardship Council® certification (FSC-C109137) — and through our instrument-making division V. Richelieu™, we have achieved something no violin maker in the world had accomplished before: V. Richelieu violins and violas are the first string instruments to carry full FSC® certification.
FSC® certification is the globally recognised gold standard for responsible forest management. It verifies that every piece of wood used in a certified product has been traced from a sustainably managed forest through a verified chain of custody. For an industry that has historically depended on endangered tropical hardwoods, FSC® certification represents a fundamental shift in what ethical instrument making looks like in the 21st century.
Our FSC®-certified tonewoods include Swiss spruce sourced through verified European suppliers, and highly-flamed Bigleaf Maple sourced from the Coquille Indian Tribe's reservation in Oregon — a partnership that honours both acoustic excellence and the Coquille Nation's exemplary Forest Stewardship Council-certified land management practices.
If you are a luthier, music school, or instrument retailer seeking FSC®-certified materials, we invite you to enquire about the availability of FSC® products in our current inventory. We stock FSC®-certified tonewoods, and our "Just Get Onboard" initiative through V. Richelieu™ is actively expanding FSC® access across the wider lutherie community — including new engagement with the Cremona School in Italy.
V. Richelieu™ — Handcrafted Violins & Violas, Made in Vermont, USA
Vermont Violins is the creator and home of V. Richelieu™ — a celebrated line of professional-grade violins and violas made entirely in our Burlington, Vermont workshop by our team of master luthiers. V. Richelieu™ instruments are available in full-size and fractional sizes, including violas as small as 11 inches — making them the definitive answer for teachers and parents seeking a no-compromise instrument for young violists.
Every V. Richelieu™ instrument is built with hand-graduated plates, a hand-applied oil varnish inspired by the golden-period Italian tradition, and premium tonewoods: FSC®-certified Swiss spruce tops and Bigleaf Maple backs and sides from the Coquille Nation's Oregon forest. Fingerboards, chinrests, and tailpieces are fitted with Sonowood or GaiaTone — our FSC®-certified sustainable alternatives to endangered ebony — as standard on every instrument, at no acoustic compromise.
V. Richelieu™ instruments are available for direct purchase, accelerated ownership program, through our flexible rent-to-own programme, financing program, and through a curated network of authorised partner shops across the USA. The V. Richelieu™ Members' Area offers registered owners access to exclusive content, warranty registration, and community resources — free of charge.
The Rental Programme — New England's Most Equitable String Rental
Vermont Violins operates one of the most comprehensive and musician-centric instrument rental programmes in the United States — serving students and families across Vermont, New Hampshire, New England, and the continental USA through online rental registration and nationwide shipping.
Our rental philosophy is simple: every dollar you invest in a rental should work towards ownership. We build more equity value into our rental programme than comparable programmes across the industry, and we offer full rent-to-own pathways on all instruments from beginner fractional to professional-grade V. Richelieu™ models.
What Makes Our Programme Different
• Strong equity accrual — every rental payment builds toward instrument ownership
• Instrument size upgrades as your child grows, with low switch fees
• New strings and quality bow included with every rental
• Wittner FineTune Pegs fitted on rental instruments at the concert level and above
• Optional Damage Waiver covering accidental breakage, weather damage, and common mishaps
• Flexible 3, 6, and 12-month renewable terms
• Online rental registration for distance customers — nationwide shipping available
• Dedicated online support for bow care, string care, and instrument care
For advancing players, our rental programme provides a natural pathway into V. Richelieu™ instruments — with trade-in credits applicable toward any instrument of equal or greater value. From a child's first fractional violin rental to a professional concert viola, Vermont Violins is a partner for the full arc of a musician's development.
Online Services & Nationwide Customer Care
Vermont Violins operates as a full-service national retailer as much as a local music shop. Our online infrastructure allows musicians anywhere in the continental United States to access our rental program, purchase instruments and accessories, and receive post-purchase support — without ever visiting us in person, if geography requires.
Our customer service reputation is among the most consistently praised aspects of the Vermont Violins experience. With a 4.8-star Google rating across 350+ verified reviews, and independently verified customer satisfaction through our Shopper Approved partnership — our commitment to responsive, knowledgeable, and personalised service is not a marketing claim; it is a documented reality.
EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITY
Being a model employer is a critical component of this company's operations. We offer generous wage and salary packages, health, vacation, retirement, and training compensation.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Our mission at Vermont Violins is to foster music in our community and the communities of our customers. While providing high quality and excellent service is socially responsible (and we'd have it no other way), so to is tangibly supporting the music our customers both enjoy and create. To this end, we donate a significant portion of our net profits towards the presentation of music in our community.
CULTURAL SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM
All of us at Vermont Violins live in our community, and part of the mission of the company is to foster the community music that we all enjoy! To this end, Vermont Violins actively donates to promote educational and artistic events happening throughout our region. While supporting the larger performing venues and organizations (the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Burlington Chamber Orchestra, and various performing venues), we retain a strong focus in our donations to schools and performance series with a strong educational focus. Recent recipients include The Vermont Youth Orchestra, the Green Mountain Youth Symphony, the Upper Valley Music Center, the Summit School, The Concord Community Music School.
We help support summer camp opportunities, like the Summit School’s Traditional Music Camp and the Northeast Heritage Music Festival, youth-fiddling organizations like Young Traditions Vermont and Fiddlestix. We promote master classes and help enable performers to present solo recitals. In fact, if you have attended a violin or fiddle-oriented event in the past year, it is very likely we helped with both financial and outreach support!
PERNAMBUCO & RARE MATERIALS CONSERVATION
Making great music shouldn't come at a cost to the environment. Unfortunately, the wood used in the finest bows; pernambuco, is a rare wood teetering towards an endangered classification. Fortunately, the International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative has been actively replanting seedlings (over 100,000 planted to date) and fostering research into the wood species. Vermont Violins carefully screens all pernambuco vendors to ensure that the wood is sourced legally and meets the IPCI approved principals for sustainability.
Vermont Violins abjures the use of contemporary ivory and while appreciative of the beauty of ivory in historic bows, we will not use it in any of our current restorations. Likewise, we seek sustainable sources of ebony and respect all laws, national and global, regarding the conservation of wood and animal species.