Westerlunds Violinverkstad AB

Weekend Lectures

Our company Westerlunds Violinverkstad AB, Irene and Peter Westerlund, organized under a couple of years (1998-2003), weekend lectures for the professional violinmakers/repairers and bow makers of Sweden.

As lecturers some of the worlds most skilled and famous violin- and bow makers was invited.

The list of lecturers at our classes:
Benjamin Schröder, Roger Hargrave, John Dilworth, Frank Ravatin, Peter Oxley, Patrick Robin, Eric Blot, Georg Kremer and Joseph Curtin.

Background

It all began when looking at the situation in Sweden among the makers. Few or no contacts between the professional makers where taken. Isolation is, as we see it, not a prosperous situation. It does not develop your skills and is very easy the source to bad rumours about your colleagues. A very human but negative act when trying to survive as a maker/repairman.

As an attempt to make a change, we got the idea of organizing lectures. These gatherings should include a top name giving a lecture, a good three course dinner where the participants could mingle and get to know one and other more.

The intent was to make this at a very low price as many makers struggle under a low budget. To be able to do this, we have received generous donations from the Järnåker foundation, The Royal Musical Academy, the Technical University of Stockholm (KTH), Brinks Musik AB in Katrineholm and also a very nice add to the social part given by the Stockholm firm "Stråkton" who invited the participants for a glass of wine and a snack at each event.

The people invited should in our opinion be the ones that needed it most, that is, the people that worked full time as a maker or repairer and had no other income to pay their bills.

The first event was held 31 of January through 2 of February 1998. The response from the invited people was very positive, witch encouraged us to keep on doing this. Nine classes where held at a phase of two times per year.

Contacts across the border have been taken in a number of occasions when people from Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland have been invited.