Due to the COVID-19 virus this event has been postposed until October. Watch this space for details
The VOCES8 Foundation are proud to host this stunning event with Heritage Crafts
Hosted in our beautiful home, the Wren church of St Anne and St Agnes, this will be a celebration of the craft behind some of the most beautiful sounds. Most handmade musical instrument crafts are now classified as endangered on the Heritage Crafts Association Red List of Endangered Crafts.
The crafts featured at this event will include harp making, woodwind instrument making, Uilleann pipe making, recorder making and string instrument making. There will also be a clog maker accompanied by Camden Clog dancers and other performances throughout the day. You can even have a go on a Uilleann pipe!
Performing Arts and Traditional Craftsmanship are two of the domains recognised by the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible heritage includes the forms of culture that can be recorded but can’t be touched or stored in physical form, including song, music and skills, and can only be experienced through someone giving expression to it. This event will give expression to the skills and traditional craftsmanship in making musical instruments, and the music and song itself.
A call to action to raise awareness of endangered musical instrument crafts
Musical instruments are heavily represented on the Red List of Endangered Crafts and so this is a priority area. This event will be used to start a process of bringing together musical instrument makers to discuss the particular issues facing their craft, and a call to action to preserve and protect skills.
Maker Profiles
Niebisch & Tree Harps
Niebisch & Tree specialise in concert harp repair and restoration as well as making a range of bespoke harps to their own design. Whilst being passionate about keeping alive the skills of harp making that have been used for hundreds of years, they combine it with modern techniques and machinery allowing them to achieve and maintain the highest standards of excellence.
Jack Darach Recorders
Jack Darach is one of Britain’s leading young Woodwind Instrument Makers. Based in Brighton, Jack was awarded the QEST (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust), Turners’ Livery Company Prize for 2016. In 2017/2018 he became a recipient of a travelling fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to pursue research into recorder making across Europe and Japan. He produces a range of modern and historical instruments based those found in European museums and his own research.
Hubert Kwisthout - Irish Uilleann Pipe Maker
Hubert Kwisthout has been a bagpipe enthusiast since an early age and started out playing with a Scottish pipeband in his home country of Holland. He moved to the UK in the 1970s to learn pipe making and has been making them ever since. Uilleann pipes are the national bagpipe of Ireland and are known for having a sweeter and quieter sound than other bagpipes. You will even get a chance to try them out if you wish!
Simon Brock Clogs
Simon Brock makes bespoke clogs, primarily for clog step dancers and Morris dancers. In 2019 he won the HCA/Marsh Endangered Craft Award. This award, set up with the support of the Marsh Christian Trust, recognises a practitioner of one of the crafts listed in the ‘critically endangered’ or ‘endangered’ categories of the HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts. Simon also won the HCA/Arts Society Heritage Crafts bursary which will enable him to extend his studies with master clog maker Jeremy Atkinson.
Simon will be accompanied at the event by dancers from Camden Clog.
Tadeusz Rytwinski – Lute Maker
Maker profile tbc
Cambridge Woodwind Makers
The Cambridge Woodwind Makers have brought together some of the finest musical instrument tutors from across the UK to share skills and inspire new people to make musical instruments. They believe that it is important to maintain an industry with the ability to remain at the forefront of instrument design and improvement, and to enrich the lives of the new makers, players and listeners. This project will ensure that others can share in the benefits both of the joy of making, the joy of playing and the joy of listening.
West Dean College of Arts and Conservation
West Dean College runs the internationally respected Foundation Degree in Musical Instruments. Students and tutors will be showcasing their work making viola de gamba, violins and guitars. The facilities at the College and the knowledge and expertise of the tutors have led to the course being highly acclaimed for the proficiency and expertise of its graduates.
Performers
Camden Clog – a dance group based in Camden who dance and teach the East Lancashire clog dance style of Pat Tracey.
Steel Pan Agency – steel pan performance
Tadieusz Rytwinski – lute maker and fiddle player
Harpist tbc