Work In Progress

I’ve had a break of several weeks from the workbench: I had to move out of the workshop to work temporarily in the house in mid-January, as the workshop was suffering water ingress and had to be stripped out and tanked. Fortunately the builders finished just before the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown, and my wonderful brother …read more

  This is one of my favourite viola models; I’ve made it many times and a number of my earlier versions are now playing full-time in orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia. It’s based on a tenor viola that is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, …read more

I made a violin based on this model earlier in the year, for a front-desk player in the Hallé Orchestra. I really liked the model; its quirky asymmetry is appealing but more importantly the arching shapes seemed as if they would give a violin with power, richness and warmth. This proved to be so, and …read more

This has become one of my favourite cello models. I first came across it a few years ago when in collaboration with three fellow violin makers we made a copy of it as a project at the Royal Northern College of Music, which owns the original. It’s a fine instrument with a rich quality of …read more

This viola is a commission from a player who already has one of my violas but would like a larger size. He’s a student at the Royal Academy of Music and has a busy time with competitions and concerts. I’ve made this model several times; it has been really popular with orchestral musicians and at …read more

  This is a lovely project. It’s a commission from close to home, a violinist in Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra who lives quite near me. Philippa had seen one of my violins and heard quite a lot about my work before she visited. When we chatted about what she was looking for, I thought that a …read more

  This is something of a dream commission for me. I’m a big fan of the work of Paolo Maggini and many of my violas in particular are based on his work. He also made a number of violins during his lifetime, some of dimensions which correspond roughly to today’s standard, and some which are …read more

I met the original of this cello in 2015, when I and three colleagues made a collaborative copy of it for the Royal Northern College in Manchester. The RNCM owns this lovely instrument, and we were lucky to have it to hand while we were working. It’s since joined my repertoire of cello models. This …read more

This viola is currently available for sale at £9000. Every year, the British Violin Making Association organises a Makers Day in London, a one-day exhibition of contemporary work. At this year’s event I found myself eating my hurried lunch sitting next to Ben Hebbert, the BVMA chairman. He whipped out his phone and showed me …read more

This is a lovely commission; a viola that has been ordered to be ready for a small viola playing son, and also when he has outgrown it to become part of the collection of the Benslow Loan Scheme; ‘”to put something back” as my customer says. Good for him. I’ve made many of these small …read more