KRUTZ Strings

KRUTZ Strings is a Kansas City–raised luthier’s manufacturing operation in Merriam, Kansas, building violins, violas, cellos, basses, and five-strings under the name of its founder and sole living eponymous luthier — Anton Krutz, who came to KC at age eight, apprenticed in Johnson County at twelve, and has made instruments in the metro ever since.

Description

KRUTZ Strings is the manufacturing and brand arm of Anton Krutz’s Merriam-based string instrument enterprise — one of the largest workshop operations of its kind in the country. The company builds the Artisan, Avant, and AK instrument lines entirely in Kansas City, covering violins, violas, cellos, double basses, and five-string instruments across the student-to-professional spectrum. Anton is the only living luthier to have a modern string instrument company bear his own name, a distinction the brand treats as a statement of direct accountability to the craft.

The operation grew out of K.C. Strings, the full-service retail shop Misha and Anton Krutz opened in 1992 on Merriam Drive. By roughly 2018, after purchasing adjacent commercial buildings and growing to a staff of approximately 40, Anton formally split the two activities: K.C. Strings handles rentals, sales, repairs, and lessons; KRUTZ Strings handles in-house manufacturing and distributes through dealers nationally. Both entities share the Merriam footprint and the same founder.

Instruments bearing the KRUTZ name are performed in professional and semi-professional orchestras across the United States. The company emphasizes that every element — wood selection, varnish formulation, string choice, and final voicing — is executed in-house in Kansas City rather than sourced from overseas factories, a claim that distinguishes it from most volume string instrument brands.

Ownership and history

Anton Krutz was born in 1968 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia, into a family saturated in classical music: his grandfather Lev Krutz played violin in the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra (participating in the famous 1942 wartime premiere of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony), both parents held music degrees, and two grandparents graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory. Anton had studied violin for five years before his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Johnson County, Kansas — the Kansas City metro — when he was eight years old.

He grew up in Johnson County, attended Shawnee Mission West High School, and at age twelve began an apprenticeship in violin making under Earsel Atchley, a Kansas City luthier noted as the first American to enter a quartet in an international European making competition. After completing the Violin Making School of America in Salt Lake City in an accelerated three-year program, Anton worked at two prestigious New York shops — Philip Injean’s atelier near Carnegie Hall and the David Gage Bass shop — before returning to Kansas City to co-found K.C. Strings with his father Misha in 1992.

Misha Krutz, who had served as a bass player with the Kansas City Symphony for three decades, brought instrument repair expertise; Anton brought luthier craft. The shop on Merriam Drive grew over the following twenty-five years into one of the Midwest’s largest full-service string instrument stores, with a repair department staffed by craftsmen carrying a combined 300+ years of experience. Around 2018 Anton formalized the manufacturing operation as KRUTZ Strings, a distinct legal entity at a nearby Merriam business-park address, allowing the production and brand side to scale independently.

Year	Event
c. 1976	Krutz family immigrates from Leningrad; settles in Johnson County, KS
c. 1980	Anton begins violin-making apprenticeship under Earsel Atchley, age 12
c. 1984–87	Attends and graduates Violin Making School of America, Salt Lake City
c. 1987–91	Restoration work in New York (Injean, David Gage)
1992	K.C. Strings opens at 5842 Merriam Drive with Misha and Anton
c. 2018	KRUTZ Strings manufacturing arm formalized; moves to 9336 W 53rd Terrace

Links

• Site: krutzstrings.com
• K.C. Strings retail: kcstrings.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/KrutzStrings

Sources

Disputes

None at this time.