The Makers is a new video series produced by Chinese luthier Yu Jie, showcasing his Botteglia degli Amici or ‘Studio of Best Friends’. In conversation with luthiers, Yu aims to give the violin makers, who are usually only heard through the instruments they craft, a chance for their own voices to be heard.

’What contemporary luthiers lack is not a story, but a narrator,’ Yu says. ’The voices of contemporary violin makers are not as powerful as those of antique violins, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.’

Episode one of The Makers features German luthier Ulrich Hinsberger. Other episodes feature  Anton Somers, Piotr Pielasek, Ryosuke Ito, Davide Sora, Lorenzo Cassi and Gilles Nehr. View the full playlist here.

Read: Trade Secrets: An easy system for making a template and a mould by Ulrich Hinsberger with Maarten De Keukeleire

Read: Challenges at the bench: mental health and luthiers

Read: Early lutherie experience: The journeyman years

Based in Melbourne, Australia since 2020, Yu studied violin making at the Central Conservatory of Music with Zheng Quan. He studied in Cremona, becoming the first Chinese luthier to restore a guqin - a seven-stringed plucked Chinese instrument - in Italy. Before relocating to Melbourne, Yu set up a studio in Beijing, joining the China Violin Makers Association in 2015.

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