Watertown Bow Maker Awarded a McArthur 'Genius' Grant

A 58-year-old Watertown man's innovative methods of making bows for violins and other string instruments earned him one of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, also known as "genius" grants.

Rolland told the Boston Globe that he is not sure the label genius should be applied to him.

“So while I am flattered, the genius is not me,” he said. “It is in the sound the bows generate when they are well-crafted and used properly.”

Music started at an early age for Rolland, who grew up in France. While he learned the violin at age 9, he eventually began to focus more on what makes the instrument produce music, rather than the music it produces, according to the Globe.

He spends up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week in his Watertown home studio crafting the bows out of wood, the Globe reports. He also makes bows out of carbon fiber and other composite materials, which makes them more affordable.

Rolland was one of 23 people world wide, including three other Massachusetts residents, who received the MacArthur Fellowships. Other Bay State recipients were Pulizer Prize-winning novelist and MIT professor Junot Diaz, Raj Chetty, a Harvard professor of economics, and Benjamin Warf, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital.

To see the whole Boston Globe article, click here.