‘Create what you are called to create’: catching up with Anne Harris and Amanda Ewing on their commissioned collaboration

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In 2022, fiddler Anne Harris was looking to expand her violin sound from her current 1961 Roth violin, when, while scrolling on Instagram, she came across Amanda Ewing – the first Black female luthier on record in the United States.

After striking up a new relationship and with the help from fundraising campaign, Ewing embarked on the journey to make a new instrument for Harris, making it the first violin ever to be commissioned between two African American women.

With the instrument now completed in 2025, Ewing and Harris are in a position to reflect on the long process that saw a close collaboration between luthier and player.

Where does one start when one commissions a new instrument? Harris originally sent Ewing a vision board, comprising an image of herself originally created for a festival poster.

’The festival was a celebration of the Pagan Spring holiday Beltane, also known as Brightfire. Beltane, more commonly known as May Day, celebrates the Sun’s return to the land, and of life, hope and renewal. The image is a picture of me leaping from the earth, wrapped in vines and leaves through my hair and around my body. There are flames wrapped around me as well as I am soaring towards a full moon.’

Additionally, Harris sent Ewing a long note describing how she wanted to feel with the instrument, as well as practical elements to be included in the new instrument. Eventually, she ended with the words: ’I want you to create what you are called to create. I trust you.’

No doubt the aspects of trust and communication were key to the instrument making-process, which took about two and a half years from start to finish. During that time, Harris and Ewing would speak every few months for updates, including photos and short videos from Ewing.

The commission was completed on 2 February 2025, which coincided with Harris’ birthday. ’I couldn’t have imagined a better gift,’ says Harris. Ewing had crafted two instruments so that Harris would have a choice.

’It was a very emotional experience for me to open up the cases and to see those beautifully crafted violins, made specifically for me, gleaming at me, just waiting to get played,’ said Harris.

’These siblings were varnished in a gorgeous honey tone, that Amanda formulated for me. They seemed to glow from within. They were stunning pieces visually, and although we hadn’t discussed varnish preferences, I would have absolutely chosen these hues.’

Ewing crafted the instruments from traditional tonewoods that she had brought back from her apprenticeship in Cremona; a spruce top and maple back, sides and neck, with willow and spruce inside, helping shape the instruments’ warmer capabilities from within.

Harris took her time to choose between the two instruments, which she called Violin A and Violin B. She took advice from her hometown luthier, Ken Stein:

’Ken gave me the very wise advice that it wasn’t just the new violins that had to adjust to me, but that ultimately I would have to learn how to play the new violins, and adjust to their specific power dynamics. His advice was spot-on. I couldn’t approach them like my old violin, and somehow try to make them mimic its sound.

’It seems to go without saying that this strong-arm approach is ill-fated. But I really needed to hear it. I had to step back from preconceived notions and open myself up to their particular demands in order to get the most from their voices.’

Harris eventually chose Violin A, recognising its potential for future expansion. ’I could only imagine that if I was feeling a transformation in just a few weeks, that in months, and years, the violin would continue to bloom as it matured.’

Stein made a few modifications for Harris, including switching out the bridge for an LR Baggs piezo pickup bridge, to accommodate Harris’ performances in amplified settings, plus lowering the fingerboard and installing fine tuners.

The violin enjoyed its first performances this year. Harris had a live broadcast performance at Chicago’s WFMT, the violin’s first appearance for a small audience. However, the violin’s first public offical debut was in May at the prestigious Grand Ole Opy in Nashville, performing with Grammy-winning blues artists Keb Mo and Taj Mahal. It also meant that Ewing, a Nashville native, was able to attend the performance and see her work on a world renowned, international stage.

Since then, the violin has been Harris’ constant travelling companion, touring exclusively with it this past summer. ’It has proven to be such a beautiful expansion to my sound. The sonic growth I feel since I began playing on it is significant, and I am so looking forward to its continued development. She’s really blooming!

’There’s an ease and vibrancy in playing it, and it truly makes me feel all the things I was hoping for, and that I expressed in my vision board I sent to Amanda way back at the beginning of this commission.

’It is such an honour to not just to make history with Amanda, but to also open the doors to the future, where hopefully people might stumble across our story and be inspired in some small way.’