My project explores an ongoing crisis in the environment that has ramifications for classical music: the endangered status of the Brazilian pernambuco tree, whose wood is used to make performance-worthy bows for violins, violas, cellos, and basses. Bowmakers from around the world have been traveling to Brazil's jungles to try to save the tree, and with it their profession. They are also protecting classical music, since much music of the Romantic era and later cannot be performed without the “modern” pernambuco bow.

I have researched the environmental core of the story and need assistance chasing down archival information related to the histories of music performance and craftsmanship. Possible topics range from Nuremberg's medieval maestersinger culture to the export of musical instruments from Germany to the US during the American Civil War, the tenets of the guild system in Revolution Era Paris, and the connection between the playing methods of virtuosi like Giovanni Viotti and composing innovations of his time, etc. The research partner should be able to translate from French. Also helpful is a grounding in Western musical history and terminology (or, alternatively, economic history, especially related to craftsmanship).