Craftsmen in tune to produce cello for Oswestry musician

In an art gallery in Shropshire, not one but four craftsmen and women have spent the week creating a hand built instrument together.

The four, Kai-Thomas Roth, Helen Michetschlager, William Castle, and Marc Soubeyran, usually work on their own to produce stringed instruments.

But a link up with one of Britain's top music conservatories has seen them become a tight knit team.

This week they met up at the Willow Art Gallery, in Oswestry, to built a concert cello for an Oswestry musician.

Mr Castle, from Whixall, said that with Mr Soubeyran based in Ludlow and the others in Manchester and Somerset, Oswestry had been the ideal venue for the project. We first met at the Royal Northern College of Music. The college had been given a grant to enable its strings musicians to learn more about their instruments.

"We got together and decided that, if we worked together, we could make a cello in a week, during which time the students could follow the process. At the end of the week the instrument was played in a concert."

The project proved so successful that the four have returned three times since to repeat their instrument building.

"At the latest workshop cello player, Sylvia Reverdy saw us working and asked us to built her a concert cello," he said.

He said that creating an instrument in just a week required intense concentration and teamwork.

But he was delighted with the result and he said the four worked well together.

He said: "We talk about what has to be done and which pieces will be made by each of us. There are times when glue has to set overnight so we have had to be very focused and organised."

"Instrument making can be a very solitary so we all enjoy working together."