STEVE BURNETT

A peek into lutherie workshops around the world

ALL PHOTOS STEVE BURNETT

LUTHIER

LOCATION

Edinburgh, UK

I’ve been based at this workshop in Edinburgh’s city centre for around 20 years. It’s housed in an old factory building comprising 40 spaces of artists and creators, from sculptors to jewellers and glass makers. I’m the only violin maker here, and we often invite each other into our studios to show them our work. It’s based in the Haymarket area in the west of the city, and was formerly used by the environment department of Edinburgh council. I like the association, since I’m an environmentalist at heart.

The workshop is around 54 sq m and I do pretty much everything in this one room. I sometimes try out instruments in the carport outside, where the acoustics are better. There’s a bandsaw behind the camera, but I prefer to use a frame saw that I built myself a few years ago. The windows face south-west, which means I get a lot of natural light throughout the day.

I like Stradivari and Guarneri models, but I’m not a copyist. When you look too closely at a great instrument, I think there’s a danger you can get caught up in its gravity and get pulled in! I prefer to use my own models, inspired by the greats. For me, old violins are time travellers, as you get a beautiful sense of time passing when you look at them. I antique all my own instruments for that reason.

In recent years I’ve been making special instruments with a historical angle. To mark the centenary of Ernest Shackleton’s death in January 2022, I made a violin from driftwood and floorboards salvaged from his Edinburgh home. And in 2020 I made one in tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 170th anniversary: it was made from wood collected from parts of Edinburgh he’d lived in and written about, from the garden of his birthplace to the Water of Leith and Pentland Hills. I like to make instruments that can be a voice for the natural world.

INTERVIEW BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD