UNITED WE STAND

A 3D audio project at the Laboratorio di Acustica Musicale Politecnico di Milano

The Cultural District of Violin Making is a project organised by the Municipality of Cremona to support musical culture and violin making in Cremona. It brings together the activities of organisations responsible for education, training and research in these two areas. The District has its origins in the Cultural District of the Province of Cremona, one of six districts in Lombardy promoted and supported financially by the Fondazione Cariplo. This District, which was launched in 2010 and covered a large geographical area, gradually set itself specific and more detailed aims, identifying research and training in music and violin making as the key areas to develop. In 2015 the District became an urban project: the Municipality of Cremona, with the support of the Fondazione Cariplo and the Fondazione Arvedi-Buschini, took the reins and the project changed shape, with violin making taking on a primary role. The project also received support from the Lombardy Region. Since 2017 the District has sought to involve the violin making community by allowing individual violin makers to become members.

The Cultural District of Violin Making comprises the Municipality of Cremona (as project leader), the Fondazione Museo del Violino Antonio Stradivari, the International School of Violin Making, Cr.Forma (the Azienda Speciale servizi di Formazione della Provincia di Cremona), the Department of Musicology and Cultural Heritage at the University of Pavia, the Politecnico di Milano Cremona campus, the scientific laboratories based at the Museo del Violino (the Arvedi Laboratory of Non-Invasive Diagnostics, run by the University of Pavia, and the Musical Acoustics Lab run by the Politecnico di Milano) and finally Cremona’s violin makers.

The Cultural District has several main objectives:

•to safeguard traditional violin craftsmanship in Cremona, as recognised in Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

•to support violin making through the Museo del Violino’s conservation, promotion and research work in Cremona

•to ensure that those who come to Cremona to study violin making to hone their skills receive highquality

training, in partnership with the International School of Violin Making, Cr.Forma

•to launch Cremona’s first degree courses in musical instrument restoration and sound engineering under the respective banners of the University of Pavia and the Politecnico di Milano, and to support andstrengthen the work of these institutions, fostering high-quality and highly specialised training

•to promote the work of the Laboratory of Non-Invasive Diagnostics and the Musical Acoustics Lab at the Museo del Violino, and to support scientific research and offer improved knowledge and facilities to assist violin makers in their professional work

•to share this knowledge with violin makers through refresher courses and professional development events run by the Museo del Violino, the International School of Violin Making, and the universities and the scientific laboratories, in order to strengthen knowledge and skills and develop innovative approaches to studying the materials and sound characteristics of both classical and contemporary stringed instruments

•to develop partnerships with musicians, and foster connections between violin makers and musicians in order to improve working practices, build relationships and help attune the needs of performers to the work of those who produce the instruments

Vibrometry analysis at the Arvedi Laboratory of Non-Invasive Diagnostics

The District now has the means to invest in the above objectives, with many new projects launched in recent years thanks in part to financial support from local and regional foundations. Today the city’s cultural life is built on institutions such as the scientific laboratories and the Museo del Violino, which is a fundamental part of Cremona’s promotion of musical heritage and home to the city’s prized collections of historic stringed instruments. The museum also houses the Stradivari artefacts: tools, wooden moulds and paper models that Antonio Stradivari used regularly to create the instruments in his workshop. After his death, all this material – more than 1,300 items – was given by his son Paolo to Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue; over a century later, the descendants of the Piedmontese nobleman sold them to the Bolognabased violin maker Giuseppe Fiorini, who in 1930 left the entire collection to the city of Cremona, on the condition that the items were put on display and that the city founded a violin making school. As a result, new areas of study came to light in Cremona, and research in the city has continued to develop, leading to new results that directly affect all areas of society, not least the arts.

One sector that has seen a significant increase in scientific research is the safeguarding of artistic heritage in general, with particular focus on objects of cultural importance and aspects linked to their restoration and regular maintenance. The multidisciplinary nature of this field means that scientists, art historians, acoustic engineers, restorers, violin makers and musicologists are now working together in Cremona, with the District directing their interests towards studying, restoring and preserving historic musical instruments. Indeed, in recent years, musical instruments, and stringed instruments in particular, have attracted much attention in research circles. The rediscovery of ancient materials such as varnishes, pigments and wood treatments, and research into organ building and acoustics have become an integral part of our cultural and scientific development. In addition, the opening of the musical instrument restoration laboratories at Palazzo Fodri in Cremona, a high-quality venue dedicated to bringing together teaching, research and conservation, provided the missing link for a holistic system with historic instruments and their championing at its heart.

Cremona is therefore an excellent example of a small city that has managed to identify its own ‘character’, quality and individuality, and communicate them in its own way, ensuring it can compete on an international level. It is becoming a place where the knowledge generated by the worlds of work and education can converge, where a network model not only allows knowledge transfer, but produces new knowledge too. Such an environment favours shared learning within the community, and could play a significant role in strengthening and developing the local area on a social, economic, manufacturing, cultural and creative level. It allows original solutions to be found, including building relationships between local and global players, remaining rooted in the region but at the same time open and willing to communicate with the world. The Cultural District of Violin Making is an extremely stimulating place: a centre for research, and somewhere people with diverse specialisms and interests can come together and exchange skills and knowledge.