Ming Jiang Zhu was the winner of 12 international awards including several highly prestigious awards – two Gold Medals in Violin Making [1994 and 2006] and a Silver Award in Viola making [1996] in the Violin Society of America (VSA) Competitions. The VSA has awarded gold medals only to those instruments that were judged highly in both tone and workmanship. He is from KwanDong violin school and won an gold medal in violin making competition. He was featured in a Time magazine article.
The Ming Jiang Zhu violins come in at two price ranges. Ranging from $1500 to $7500 violins. The $7500 one is made directly by Ming Jiang Zhu.
Ming Jiang Zhu violins are quoted as being “well seasoned spruce”, all are “oil antiqued finished”. The higher price model is all European wood, one step down has European spruce and highly-flamed maple.
The VN-350 Artist is the bottom of the line but is a very fine instrument made in the workshop of Ming Jiang Zhu.
The VN-900 is made from European Maple and Spruce and has excellent workmanship. They come well set up and are consistent and are a real good “player” instrument. Ming Jiang Zhu performs about 20% of the work on the high level VN-900 Premium Master instruments.
Ming’s workshop employs about 30 workers. They produce about 40 instruments per month. It is a small workshop of makers under the direct supervision of the master Ming Jiang Zhu. No instrument is sent out without inspection by Ming Jiang Zhu himself. Ming Jiang Zhu performs about 20% of the work on the high level VN-900 Premium Master instruments.
The Ming Jiang Zhu workshop has also produced viola da gambas.