Willis M. Gault (1906-1991) was a performer, composer, and luthier best known for his Washington-based school of violin making and performances of early music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Gault was born in Showell, MD in 1906. Possessing perfect pitch, he taught himself to play and eventually build the violin before the age of nine. In his early career, Gault performed accompaniments to silent movies in Berlin, MD. As a teenager, Gault was apprenticed to a violin maker in Washington, DC, eventually opening his own studio in 1935. During this early part of his career, Gault also worked as an accounting clerk at the Treasury Department. As a luthier, Gault was particularly well known for his recreations of string instruments of the 15th, thru the 17th centuries. Significantly, Gault made 160 violas d’amore, and other pre-violin instruments such as the viola da gamba and quinton. At the Willis Gault School, located in the District’s old music quarter around 13th and G Streets, NW, Gault taught more than 700 students between 1941 and 1990. As a performer, Gault was the founder of the Ancient Instrument Society and performed extensively on the viola da gamba. Gault both composed original works for these Baroque-era instruments and arranged music for ensembles of these instruments. He also organized and arranged music for an orchestra of patients at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Gault died at his home in Greenbelt, Maryland in 1991.