About Makers’ Day
Created to bring together musicians and makers for a celebration of our instruments
When you walk through the doors of Kings Place on Makers’ Day, you’ll be met with the immediate buzz of atmosphere from makers and musicians, meeting, talking and playing as it echoes out across the galleries.
For the whole of the day, you can walk around the galleries and meet makers at their stands where they’ll be displaying currently available instruments. You can discuss your needs, ideas and even trial instruments right where you stand.
To accompany the exhibits, there is an exciting series of concerts, masterclasses and talks happening throughout the day, which you can find the details of on our schedule.
Experience the ancient craft of violin making
Whether you are actively seeking to purchase an instrument, or interested in broadening your interest in the violin, Makers’ Day provides the opportunity to see, hear and play instruments from a wide selection of contemporary makers from Britain and overseas, as well as meet the people who make them.
The British Violin Making Association
The British Violin Making Association, formed in 1995, is one of the foremost violin making associations in the world. We work to support and promote fellowship between violin family instrument and bow makers by organising events, short courses, networking opportunities and publishing a quarterly magazine.
Kings Place
Kings Place is an open, multi-arts venue, presenting an adventurous and critically-acclaimed programme, with words and music at its heart. They are a place where many audiences belong, a place where people connect with their passion and no-one is lost in the crowd.
The BVMA are grateful for their ongoing support of Makers’ Day.
About the Kreutzer Quartet
The Kreutzer Quartet is acclaimed for its adventurous performances and recordings of works from our time and from the great quartet literature.
Their fascination with musical exploration has resulted in cyclic performances and recordings of works ranging from Anton Reicha and David Matthews to Michael Tippett and Roberto Gerhard, on the Chandos, Naxos, NMC, Metier, Toccata, New Focus, Tadzik, Move, Lorelt, Innova and Guild labels.
Composers who have written, or are writing, for them include Gloria Coates, Robert Saxton, Simon Bainbridge, John McCabe, Laurie Bamon, Nicola LeFanu, Elliott Schwartz, Jeremy Dale Roberts, David Horne, Michael Hersch, Gary Carpenter, Sadie Harrison, Evis Sammoutis, David Matthews, Paul Pellay, Rosalind Page, Jeremy Thurlow, Hans Werner Henze, Michael Finnissy, Roger Steptoe, Haflidi Hallgrimsson, Poul Ruders, George Holloway, Peter Dickinson, Jim Aitchison, David Gorton, Edward Cowie, Jörg Widmann, and GeorgeRochberg, to name just a few.
The Quartet has held residencies at York University, and Goldsmiths University of London: they have given hundreds of workshops for young composers, in the UK and internationally.
The Quartet has a truly international career, playing at venues ranging from the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Bergen Festpilerne, Venice Biennale, the Concertgebouw, to Wilton’s Music Hall, their favourite London venue.
The quartet is very proud of their collaboration with the BVMA. In response to this, they have commissioned a group of composers to write new quartets in celebration of living makers, living composers, and living music. These include Sadie Harrison, Robert Saxton, David Matthews, Michael Alec Rose, and Edwin Roxburgh - and some of the resulting composers' work will be hear this afternoon.