The violin, a virtuoso instrument born from great minds of Italian violin making since the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. From the Brescian Giovan Paolo Maggini; to Nicola Amati from Cremona. Master of the future Andrea Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari.
Now, Luca Alessandrini is challenging the canons of chamber lutherie. Thirty-year-old Italian winner of a competition, announced by Imperial College London as the best international project. He excelled among hundreds of students from all over the world, with his "spider silk violin". This project resulted in a prize worth ten thousand pounds.
Luca Alessandrini and his talent
But who is Luca Alessandrini? His story is that of a young man who grew up in a family of furniture makers, where innovative experimentation is an essential feature. After working in the company for a while, he enrolled in a two-year master's degree from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in innovation, engineering and design.
After various projects and researches assigned to him, the final assignment foreseen for Luca becomes really challenging: to create a union between biomaterials and new developments in the acoustic sector, within six months. Among Luca's passions there is also that for music; and the project header will ignite his creativity, which will immediately lead him to search for an answer in the violin. This instrument has undergone minor changes over time; attempting a structural modification, therefore, would have entailed a provocation capable of stimulating him during the undertaking.
"The Spider Silk Violin"
Luca uses his knowledge in experimenting with various materials; it grows bacteria, experiments with bioresins, tests jute and bamboo; but nothing seemed to match the solidity of carbon fiber. Until he thinks of silk, a material of similar quality that would have made up for the demand for biomaterials, being natural.
A first violin prototype was built with layers of silk donated by the Comense company Taroni, bound with bio-resin; spider silk was applied to the second, supplied thanks to a collaboration with the University of Oxford, which in the zoology department has a breeding of spiders from Australia that produces cobwebs with resistance superior to steel five times, but more elastic. The sample was applied in some areas of the instrument, such as the area under the bridge.
Future projects
It will be Gualtiero Nicolini, president of the National Association of Italian Artistic Violin Making, who will bring together the Cremonese luthiers who have enthusiastically welcomed Luca's project. Also well-known musicians such as Peter Sheppard Skaerved, who together with other composers are already thinking about the transcription of a score for this instrument, were also impressed.
After winning the award, Luca prepares what is needed to achieve his next goal: to extend his research into more areas of acoustics.
Lately he founded a start-up, where he works on various projects that embrace the same themes. Finally, very soon, it will launch a crowdfounding campaign to receive funds to support research into the potential of these new materials. We therefore wish the best to Luca, as to all the young Italians who still manage to describe an Italy that is innovative and irreplaceable in research.
