St Anne & St Agnes Church, London. View into the ceiling and shallow dome
The Sound of Craft at London Craft Week 2020
A London Craft Week event by the Heritage Crafts Association in collaboration with the VOCES8 Centre, St Anne & St Agnes Church, Gresham Street, London EC2V 7BX (map)
Thursday 30th April 2020
We are inviting musical instrument makers to demonstrate and present their at London Craft Week. This will be a high-profile opportunity to showcase your work to the public and invited V.I.Ps.
Please get in touch with Mary Lewis on mary@heritagecrafts.org.uk for more information.
Programme
12am – 4pm, Free drop-in event with craft demonstrations and performances
5pm-7pm, V.I.P drinks reception and recital
Hosted in the stunning Wren church of St Anne and St Agnes, this will be a celebration of the craft behind some of the most beautiful sounds. Many handmade musical instrument crafts are now classified as endangered on the Heritage Crafts Association Red List of Endangered Crafts including flute making, piano making, brass instrument making, percussion instrument making, Northumbrian pipe making, woodwind instrument making and harp making. The craft of steel pan making that originated in Trinidad and Tobago has recently been recognised as a heritage craft by the HCA, and is culturally significant in London. The hand carved clogs used for traditional clog dancing are a critically endangered craft.
Performing Arts and Traditional Craftsmanship are two of the domains recognised by the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible heritage includes the forms of culture that can be recorded but can’t be touched or stored in physical form, including song, music and skills, and can only be experienced through someone giving expression to it. This event will give expression to the skills and traditional craftsmanship in making musical instruments, and the music and song itself.
A call to action to raise awareness of endangered musical instrument crafts
Musical instruments are heavily represented on the Red List of Endangered Crafts and so this is a priority area. This event will be used to start a process of bringing together musical instrument makers to discuss the particular issues facing their craft, and a call to action to preserve and protect skills.
The Turners’ Company supports the endangered craft of musical instrument making. Read The Turners’ Consort article here
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