Fiddle Festival Honors The Music Maker

Santa Barbara master violin maker James Wimmer will be honored at Wimmerata, a festival of two concerts featuring musicians from throughout California playing their Wimmer instruments, Sunday, Sept. 7, at Trinity Episcopal Church on the corner of Micheltorena and State Streets. The first concert, 4-6 p.m., will highlight world-class fiddlers playing bluegrass and old-time music. A classical concert follows at 7 p.m. with an all-Wimmer string orchestra and featured soloists. A suggested donation of $25 will contribute to the completion of the Hubert Schwyzer Quartet, which Westmont has commissioned Wimmer to make. For information about the concert or the quartet, contact the Westmont music department at (805) 565-6040.

Both concerts will feature Gilles Apap, a South Coast violinist known worldwide for his classical concerts and bluegrass playing. Richard Greene, well-known composer and bluegrass fiddler, will also perform. Adrian Spence of Camarata Pacifica will be the conductor and master of ceremonies at the classical concert. Two dozen other artists who play Wimmer instruments will perform work by J.S. Bach, Marcello, Telemann, Shostakovich, Vivaldi, and others.

James Wimmer has been crafting string instruments by hand in Santa Barbara for 21 years. He studied in Germany with a family whose tradition of violin making goes back to the early 1700s, and he continues to use their painstaking process today. Wimmer’s instruments are played around the world and are known for their similarity to 18th century Italian masters.

The Hubert Schwyzer Quartet, named in honor of a former UC Santa Barbara philosophy professor and cellist, will be used by generations of Westmont students and faculty during the school year and be loaned to the Music Academy of the West
for their summer programs. The instruments will exist in perpetuity as a resource for the Santa Barbara music community.