Paris Andrew

Paris Andrew trained at the violin-making school at Merton College London under the exceptional master maker Keith Graves. After graduating, Paris won a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Trust for her work, which allowed her to travel to Florence to work alongside a group of remarkable luthiers and study the Tuscan style and history of violin making with Maestro Francesco Algieri. Her great love of baroque music and history led her to retrain and specialise in baroque builds with Maestro Fabio Chiari. Paris has exhibited all over the world and is proud to have her instruments played by remarkable professionals and work in collaboration with award-winning artists such as Leonardo Frigo and Federico Guglielmo. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and The Churchill Trust. Since the summer of 2021, she has offered training and masterclasses to promising female luthiers and she teaches repair and restoration at the Scuola di Liuteria Toscana Fernando Ferroni.

Paris practises the heritage craft with respect to the rich cultural and artistic history of stringed instrument making. She works meticulously, only with hand tools, on wood that she sources and chooses herself for its tonal and aesthetic qualities. Instruments are generally made from models of existing historical instruments; using the model, the artisan creates an internal form from which the rib structure and then the violin emerges. For the varnishing process, Paris handmakes her own varnish according to historical recipes.

Paris was born into a very artistic family and grew up attached to her violin, which she played from a young age. Fascinated by the world of lutherie after a trip to a local luthier at the age of 16, she later went on to follow her passion: first as an apprentice to harpsichord maker and restorer Maestro Fergus Hoey, and later at the violin-making school.

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