CONCEPT

The art of violin making is at a crossroads. Renowned master craftsmen like Stadiviari or Guarnieri excelled in a cultural environment that encouraged innovation and creativity in the arts. Since then violin making has for the most part been a re-enactment of the past as string players scramble for concert quality instruments that they can afford.

In recent years, low-cost labor and modern factories, both of which flourish in the business of copying, are challenging contemporary violinmakers in a "race to the bottom". This is hardly the approach upon which the great traditions of violinmaking were founded. Clearly something new is needed.

The Amiata Violin Summit has been created by professionals in the field to nurture innovation in a craft so indispensable to the world of music, to honor and revitalize the traditions of violinmaking and to draw public awareness to the importance of the above.

EVENTS

Under the guidance of Gregg Alf, a world class violin-maker from America, eight leading artisans from around the world will be brought together with eight internationally acclaimed string players for a two week Summit, that with funding can led to a traveling exhibit and a series of concerts to showcase the "Amiata Violins"™ constructed at the Castle. A "Think Tank" for makers, musicians and audience, the Amiata Summit will make a significant contribution to the future of the violin.

LOCATION

Splendidly situated on the slopes of the Monte Amiata, the Castello di Potentino has Etruscan foundations. First documented in 1042, it has passed through many noble Tuscan families ; the Tolomei, the Bourbon del Monte, the Salimbeni. Purchased and restored recently by the Greene family, it has become the center of a traditional wine and olive oil producing estate.

GOALS

The project aims:

To act as a catalyst for new violinmaking by bringing selected makers together with string players of equal caliber so they can learn from each other as they did during the Renaissance. To encourage the exchange of different techniques and visions for a new generation of string instruments. To provide the facilities and environment needed for new instruments to be built and for players to rehearse with them. To challenge those gathered to produce and play instruments that stop no longer at imitating a glorious past but instead push the boundaries of today's instruments to ever higher levels. To promote the ideals arising from the Summit amongst string players and violinmakers.

PROTAGONISTS

 

 

DETAILS

In the summer of 2004, in the beautiful Tuscany region of Amiata, Italy, eight of the worldâs leading violin makers gathered for two weeks of discussion, brainstorming, conceptualizing, and artist and technical explorations into developing violins and other stringed instruments for the future.

In what will surely become the leading think tank on violin making, The Amiata Summit biannual meetings are designed to address the ever-changing needs of musicians and craftsman, leaving no concepts unturned, no suggestions unchallenged, and no alternatives unexplored.

Each morning a different maker shared their vision for contemporary violin making and led a discussion of it with their colleagues. The rest of the participants offered feedback intended to help that maker refine his vision. Then there was free time for journaling when participants documented their reflections on the discussion.

The afternoon began with a group discussion on more general topics. A specialist in professional product design led a group process (brainstorming) about innovations for our craft and then a focus group to help identify and redefine a market image (branding) for new violins that is both forward looking, evocative of their unique qualities and respectful of the good marketing already in place for rare antique violins.

There was also time for each maker to revise their own drawings and create a written statement about their current “state of the art” violin and worked on a prototype of such an instrument in a workshop at the castle. A good exchange of workshop ideas and experience took place. Instruments were finished at home over the summer.

As I mentioned, string players will have an important role at the Summit. I selected players that I feel will truly challenge and engage us in our discussions. In the evenings there were informal concerts in the Castle and at the end of the two weeks a gala dinner and closing ceremony followed a formal concert in the Cathedral of Grosseto featuring soloists Elmar Oliveira, Sandy Robbins and Guillermo Figueroa, with the local symphony performing on our instruments.

At the end of the Summit, the written statements, journals, drawings, and, later in the summer, the actual instruments produced by each participant will be assembled in a traveling exhibit that will tour two or three major museums and a dozen or so music conservatories in major cities around the world. While funding for this is still underway, the goal is that by sharing our work with our colleagues, with string players, and with teachers we will ultimately stimulate more creativity and interest in new violins that look to the future while respecting what has been.

This invitation only event challenges the long-held conception that violin making reached its zenith in the 1700s within the workshops of Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri. By rotating the participants every two years, makers from around the world will have the opportunity to participate in determining the future of the stringed arts. By including classical, jazz, bluegrass, and other genre musicians, collaboration between maker and artist will be thoroughly addressed and explored.

Amiata Summit was founded by Ann Arbor, Michigan-based luthier Gregg Alf of Alf Studios, a graduate of the International School of violinmaking in Cremona and by Tuscany-based Candice Wood, violinist and director of Medea Productions, a company specializing in the organization of high profile cultural events in Italy.

Our program began in Tuscany one sunny afternoon with a few simple questions: “where would the world of fine art & literature be today if most of the painters since Leonardo and many of the poets since Shakespeare had limited themselves to recreating copies, in ever finer detail, of the Mona Lisa or Hamlet. What if Enzo Ferrariâs impressive 1947 125 S, with a new V12 engine and double independent front suspension, was now the final statement in auto racing?” While I am fully aware that my craft of violinmaking falls somewhere in between the extremes of pure art and fine engineering, nevertheless, the question remains: why are we still copying?

The great Masters of the 1700s, Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri, Bergonzi, and others, created lasting works of functional art that have served musicians for over 300 years. But view any violin making exhibition and youâll find instruments whose design is largely unchanged from those early days of violin making. While the world has progressed rapidly in the past 100 years through technological innovation, and stylistic evolution, violin making remains unchanged. Most contemporary makers (myself included) have remain focused on a Îre-enactment of the pastâ by copying the well established models of Guarneri and Stradivari.

So, why has an entire industry become stagnated to innovation? Is it that some musicians prefer to perform only on famous Italian violins of the 1700s? Is it because some conductors shun contemporary instruments in their orchestra? Or, is it because violin makers are afraid to experiment with the form and materials used in violin construction? These preferences and fears feed one another.

The 2004 Amiata Summit invited leading string players, music directors, and violin makers from around the world to discuss such topics.

Certainly, the current state of violin making is experiencing a rapid growth in knowledge and skill. Through computer assisted topography we have meticulously studied the archings of the best instruments. Through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis we have reverse engineered the varnishes of the old Masters and replicated the look of famous instruments. By using magnetic resonance imaging for the mapping of thickness contours, by modal analysis of assembled instruments and through similar advanced research methods, we have the technical tools for developing truly, outstanding instruments. All of this is happening today.

The Amiata Summit was a proactive effort to support modern violinmakers in new directions of creativity, originality, and evolution of design while at the same time redefining Înew violinsâ in a more progressive way in the eyes of contemporary string players. To achieve this I invited eight leading violinmakers from around the world, to meet with an equal number of prominent string players and creative staff at the medieval Castello di Potentino in Tuscany for a two week Summit dedicated to the advancement of our craft.

As a group, the participants share a foundation of knowledge in both the scientific state of the art and in a traditional, hands-on, study and use of original instruments. Their ultimate intent, like that of the Amiata Summit itself, will be to help pave the way for all who would like to explore our ideas.

The Amiata Summit participants will work individually and collectively to develop and share information amongst themselves, other makers, instrument making schools and workshops, commercial operations, players, conductors, and other music aficionados as has never before occurred in an industry that has historically been secretive. In doing so, the needs of strings players can be better met while insuring the future viability of a centuries old craft.

By sharing these concepts and our finished products with the music industry and the general public, the Amiata Summit can help establish a future direction not only for stringed instruments, but music composition, performance, and public interest in general.

I donât expect the Summit to produce major upheavals in contemporary violinmaking. But, it may change the way we think about things -and even gentle departures- sometimes take a concerted effort.

I hope you will continue to join me in opening your mind to where stringed instruments can go and in encouraging others to think beyond what we've taken for granted for 300 years. It is my sincerest hope that Amiata Summit will begin a worldwide movement to seek new and exciting means to solve some of problems facing instrument making today, while opening new frontiers for performers, collectors, and luthiers.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the website of the first edition of the Amiata Summit, a festival dedicated to the future of violin making.

The idea for such an event came over a casual lunch in Massa Marittima, a hilltop town on the coast of Tuscany, when my friend, the America violin maker Gregg Alf posed the simple question - “Where would art be today if painters since Leonardo had limited their creative vision to mostly just copyingthe Mona Lisa?” While we now know, thankfully, that such has not have been the case for painters, to a large extent this is precisely the state of affairs in the world of violin makers.

As our conversation progressed, never could we have imagined the enthusiasm and support that would greet our dreams for such a Summit. While Gregg was assembling a group of leading violinmakers, string players and consultants for the Summit, here in Italy funding was securedfor a project that even includes an experimental reforestation program in a zone of the Amiata Mountainsthat has theproper climatic conditions for the maple trees used by violin makers.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors both public and private, from the Region of Tuscany to the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank, who from the outset believed and saw the potential of such a unique event taking place in perhaps one of the most beautiful and undiscovered corners of Tuscany. In addition, I would like to thank the Greene family who have so kindly allowed us the use of their wonderful medieval castle in Potentino.

I hope that you will find our project of interest. If you would like to know more about the Amiata Summitor have proposals for our future events, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Candice Wood Amiata Summit Co-Founder and Administrative Director Director, Medea Productions