About us

The Saddle Rider Research Collective was founded by John Haines-Eitzen and Georg Schegolsky who share common Ukrainian roots despite being born nearly 8000 kilometers apart.

John’s Mennonite ancestors were invited to Ukraine from Prussia by the 18th century Russian Empress Catharine the Great to farm the fertile Ukrainian soil. The success of these music-loving farmers led to their ousting from Ukraine as “Bourgeoise” due to growing political unrest in the late 1800s. Eventually they settled in the midwestern United States, bringing with them the iconic “Tumbleweed” (Russian Thistle) as a stowaway in their winter wheat and flax seed stock.

Georg’s emigration from Ukraine was much more recent: He and his young family were forced to leave their home, and Georg’s carbon fiber tailpiece workshop, in Kharkiv under missile fire at the start of the war. He relied on grit and technical expertise to bootstrap new machinery in Europe using local hardware and whatever parts he could order online. After building a 3D printer and a CNC machine, Georg was able to restart his carbon fiber tailpiece manufacturing business in Portugal where he now lives with his family and oversees the International operations of SaddleRider.com, a merger of John’s “Saddle Rider Music, LLC” with Georg’s “ConCarbo.com”

Saddle Rider Music, LLC, the parent company of SaddleRider.com, began by manufacturing an adjustable saddle for stringed instruments that John, a former member of The Philadelphia Orchestra and current Teaching Professor and Artist-in-Residence at Cornell University, patented in 2019. The device adjusts an instrument’s tone and response by “riding” on its existing saddle (a small ebony piece protecting the body of the instrument from the wear of the tailgut), hence the name “Saddle Rider.”

As a result of John’s and Georg’s collaborations, SaddleRider.com has grown into a leading international provider of cutting-edge musical instrument components with clients on 5 continents.

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