My Space: Marcus Kimke

I’ve been based in this area of central France, in the Loire Valley, almost since I started work as a luthier. I graduated from the Mittenwald School in 1992 and around four years later began working as an assistant luthier for Patrick Robin and Andrea Frandsen, who live a few miles south of Angers. After six years I opened my own shop, and since then I’ve seen perhaps a dozen more luthiers set up their businesses in and around the city. It’s become quite a violin making hub, just within the past decade, and many of us get together in January each year to socialise. In France there’s a New Year tradition called the ‘Galette des Rois’, where everyone comes together to share a cake containing a small porcelain figurine. The one who receives it becomes the king for a day. Any maker who’s set up a new workshop in the past year has the honour of organising the next Galette des Rois – which last year was me, as my address changed 18 months ago…