Born in 1996, Lina Goldbach graduated from the Waldorf School Berlin-Havelhöhe / Berlin-Kreuzberg. At that point, it was clear that her many years of violin playing, which she began at the age of 6, and her passion for arts and crafts combined with the scientific, physical and historical aspects of violin making would lead to her chosen career.

This idea also carried her through her studies in music management at Saarland University, where she focused on topics from musicology and modern project organization. In 2019, she wrote her bachelor's thesis on the violin-making tradition of the “Alemannic School”, devoting herself to an area of historical violin making that had previously been little researched.

After completing her studies, she began training as a violin maker, which she completed in 2022 with master violin maker Andrea Masurat in Lübeck. She attended vocational school in Mittenwald, the cradle of the German violin-making tradition.
Following the impetus of her years of traveling as a craftswoman, she then set off for a year in which she completed five internships in Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands. In addition to numerous repairs and involvement in new construction projects, each of these internships had a different focus: at Gesina Liedmeier in Velp, Netherlands, she worked on historical instruments and woodcarving. With Wiebke Lüders and Lukas Pawelka in Voss, Norway, she visited one of the most renowned Hardanger fiddle workshops and an important center of Norwegian folk music and art at the Ole Bull Academy. Together with Magnus Nedregard she took part in the international “Master to Master” symposium and gained valuable experience in the restoration of historical violins. In the heart of Irish folk music, the coastal town of Galway, she visited the oldest resident instrument maker there, Paul Doyle, where she became particularly familiar with the customer-oriented way in which folk musicians carry out repairs. At Dominic Lyons in Knockabeha (Co. Kerry) in Ireland, she worked intensively on varnishing a violin in the antique style and also attended one of the largest Irish folk festivals, the Willey Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay.

Lina Goldbach has been working as a freelance violin maker since summer 2023 and is still involved in international collaborations and close exchanges with colleagues from different generations and countries. She works part-time as a project organizer for various music projects for young people, from first cautious steps into the world of music to large orchestral projects on the stages of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Violin making is characterised above all by its historical focus. Around 400 years ago, the great masters such as Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri or Stainer determined the models that are still made in almost every violin making workshop today. It seems as if the ideal, the perfect stringed instrument, had been found. The possibilities for documentation were limited at the time, and over the generations, affected by wars and epidemics, knowledge about wood and varnish, about harmonic relationships and the shaping of sound was lost.

For a long time, research into ancient knowledge tended to take place on an individual basis. Since the beginning of the 21st century, this pattern seems to be slowly changing. New research is being shared and welcomed, and research and working groups are forming across national borders, especially among younger generations. Lina Goldbach is also part of this new movement. Together with other violin makers, a network is emerging that is expanding more and more and whose members are actively exchanging ideas. Knowledge is exchanged, experiments are carried out together and plans are made to increase international exchange. In this way, they contribute to the progress of violin making and benefit from the motivation, experience and skills of others.