Prospective, current and alumni students of the Newark College School of Musical Instrument Craft have started a campaign to stop the historic institution's closure. Lincoln College ordered that the course be closed down due to declining numbers and as a result of "substantial losses" over the past three years.

As of May 7, students were informed that no new students would be admitted to the musical instrument courses at Newark. There are four distinct courses to train in the various forms of musical instrument crafting, these include violin making, guitar making, piano technician training and Woodwind specialist training.

Campaign to protect violin school’s future, as reported in the Newark and Southwell Advertiser.

Steven Morris’s article prompts me to mention two severe blows that have hit the craft of violin-making and restoration in this country. The first was the recent death of Charles Beare, internationally renowned as the leading authority and connoisseur of violins, violas and cellos, and a lifelong, generous supporter of young makers. His passing leaves London very much the poorer as a world centre of expertise in this specialised field. The second blow is that the degree programme at the Newark School of Violin Making will not be running this year, apparently because there were not enough applicants.

Over the last 50 years, the Newark school, in Nottinghamshire, has nurtured a generation of people from all over the world dedicated to the craft, which can be traced back to the Tudor period in this country, and came to rival similar schools in Cremona, Italy, and Mittenwald, Germany. The abandonment of the violin-making course would be a great loss to craft and music.

I should add that my entire career in this fantastic trade was given to me by the Newark school and by Charles Beare. So I am biased, but particularly sad.
John Dilworth
Twickenham, London

Students at the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts have taken to the market town’s streets to protest the decision not to take students on to the 2025–26 degree programme. Notices declaring ‘Save the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts’ have appeared in shops and pubs around the town, while the petition launched on Friday 7 May has now reached over 6,000 signatures.

On 12 May Lincoln College, which owns and oversees both Newark College and the School of Musical Instrument Craft (MIC), put out a press release stating: ‘The College remains committed to the small amount of affected students and to current learners on their Level 5 and Level 6 courses will be supported, with no change to their courses. At present, there are four students who are being directly affected by a potential single course closure as well as eight others who we have offered places to.

In 2016 to mark the centenary year of Yehudi Menuhin, one of the founder’s of the Newark School of Violin Making students made a violin to raise money for the local Trent Chamber Orchestra in which many of them are musicians. This is the video diary that documents their process.

Prospective students at the Newark School of Violin Making have launched a petition to protest the announcement that the school will be closing its doors to new BA (Hons) students for the 2025–26 academic year. Several foundation-year students have said they had been told within the past two weeks that they would be progressing to the Musical Instrument Craft (MIC) degree programme, but each received a phone call on 8 May saying that the offer was withdrawn and that a lack of applications meant the degree programme would not commence in September 2025 as planned.

It all begins with an idea.