Video: Peter Sheppard Skærved celebrates the Newark School of Violin Making in new film

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Peter Sheppard Skærved’s ‘Knowledge Exchange Violin’ project brings together films, podcasts, live events, exhibitions and recordings in collaboration with museums, collections and organisations on both sides of the Atlantic. These include the Library of Congress, the City of Genova, the Ashmolean Museum, the RSPB, and the Metropolitan Museum.

In June 2024, with director Malene Sheppard Skærved and director of photography Immo Horn, he returned to the Newark School of Violin Making. ’An extraordinary two days ensued, exploring ideas around making, listening, teaching, composing and looking with the extraordinary community of emerging luthiers, and in collaboration with violin maker/tutor John Francis Wright and Ben Hebbert, one of the great thinkers about and around the violin,’ says Skærved.

The resulting film includes interviews, performances and discussion in the workshop spaces of the school, and music filmed on instruments by Andrea and Girolamo Amati, Stradivari, Albani and Jacob Rayman. ’It’s a great opportunity to celebrate the work of one of the world’s great making schools, and to hear the voices of the people who work and study there,’ he says.

This project is supported by Research England and the Royal Academy of Music.

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