*MIROSLAV VANA - BIOGRAPHY * 

I'm a mandolin builder and player from the Czech Republic, Central Europe. During my personal studies with prime Czech violin makers I gained a lot of experience with building and, in particular, restoring violins and other stringed instruments. In that time period I began to study old master violins, and focused, in particular, on Lloyd Loar period mandolins. I successively focused my research firmly on mandolin construction, tuning of soundboards, and varnish of my own production.
I studied in detail some of the finest Lloyd Loar mandolins as well as other world class vintage instruments in the USA and Europe. My mandolins have gradually gained respect within Europe, USA, Japan and other countries.

I've also been an active musician for more then two decades. I'm a passionate mandolin player and a big fan of acoustic music. Besides playing with many bluegrass and acoustic music bands, I used to play jazz and classical music on mandola with a mandolin quartet. I also performed as a guest musician at the Czech National Theatre.

*ABOUT VANA MANDOLINS*

I adhere to traditional F5 and A5 mandolin models, in line with Lloyd Loar. Nonetheless, I always do my best to satisfy individual customer. My mandolins are appreciated by musicians for both their balanced, rich tone with large dynamic range, percussive, huge chops and pleasant playability.

I believe that master-class instruments deserve the maximum amount of care, time and attention that is possible. All my mandolins are strictly handmade, relying on traditional, time-tested violin-making techniques altered for the needs of the mandolin construction. Consequently, I offer very limited production of master-class instruments, where each mandolin is a rare, incommutable original. I spend a few months of my life exclusively with each mandolin.

I use American and European spruce and maple of the top quality. The air-chamber, soundboards, and tone-bars are carefully tuned to reach the best sound qualities. On all my instruments I use a high quality hand-rubbed varnish finish of my own production based on top quality natural resin.

A great deal of my time is spent on research. For that I use both traditional methods and modern technologies and scientific tools in order to ensure that I reach the best possible sound and visual qualities with every single instrument.