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
Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo Trandafilovski – Violins
James Sleigh – Viola, Neil Heyde – Cello
Music: David Matthews – Miniatures and Arrangements including –
‘A Prayer’ (World Premiere)
The Kreutzer Quartet have worked with David Matthews for three decades. This collaboration is vitally important to their work, focussed on his (so-far) 18 String Quartets, one of the most significant contributions to the repertoire of any composer.
The Kreutzer Quartet is acclaimed for its adventurous performances and recordings of works from our time and from the great quartet literature. The Quartet has a truly international career, playing at venues ranging from the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Bergen Festspillene to the Venice Biennale and the Aldeburgh Festival. They are particularly proud of their collaboration with the BVMA, which resulted in them begin elected Honorary Members this time last year.
‘The commitment and dedication of these recordings are as one would expect from these performers but there are flashes of brilliance too.’ Gramophone Magazine 2025
‘Das Kreutzer Quartet gehört zur Weltelite.’ Magazin.Klassik.com 2025
‘With a performance of such technical perfection and a superb recording, everything, but everything, is in place.’ Fanfare 2025
The quartet’s fascination with musical exploration has resulted in cyclic performances and recordings of works ranging from Anton Reicha to Michael Tippett and Roberto Gerhard, on the Metier, Chandos, Guild, Innova, Lorelt, Move, Naxos, New Focus, NMC, Tadzik and Toccata Classics labels.
Recently critically acclaimed releases included music by their international collaborating composers of all generations, including Gloria Coates, Robert Saxton, Edward Cowie, Edward Cowie, Joel Jarventausta, and Sadie Harrison, to name just a few. In the next few months, they will be releasing discs of works by Jim Aitchison, David Hackbridge Johnson, David Mattews, David Horne, and Martin Ellerby.
Inspired by their work with the BVMA, the quartet has commissioned new works from an extraordinary group of composers, including Edwin Roxburgh, Mihailo Trandafilovski, David Matthews, Michael Alec Rose, and Sadie Harrison to write works inspired by the dialogue between makers, composers, and players. These will be premiered over the next year.
Other Composers who have written for them include Simon Bainbridge, Gary Carpenter, Jeremy Dale Roberts, Peter Dickinson, Michael Finnissy, Gregory Fritze, David Gorton, David Hackbridge Jonhnson, Hafliđi Hallgrímsson, Hans Werner Henze, Michael Hersch, George Holloway, Nicola LeFanu, John McCabe, Paul Pellay, George Rochberg, Poul Ruders, Evis Sammoutis, Elliott Schwartz, Jeremy Thurlow and Jörg Widmann. The Quartet has held residencies at York University, Lund University and Goldsmiths University of London and has have given hundreds of workshops for young composers, in the UK and internationally.