Kirckman harpsichord film

From 2017 to 2019 I worked with my friend Farokh Khorooshi, a veteran producer of commercials, to produce a television documentary about the building of a Kirckman harpsichord for a client in Munich. It is presented and narrated by Donald Macleod, the distinguished presenter of Composer of the Week on BBC Radio3. Our plan was not to describe in detail how to make a harpsichord but rather to tell the story of this particular one with its various detours and digressions. The harpsichord was to have all the extra features that Kirckman provided for his most expensive instruments but with some extra adaptations to make it useful in a modern situation – a specification which caused a few headaches. It was shot mostly in my workshop where there was only room for Farokh behind the camera and me in front of it, also acting as “crew”. There were visits to Gloucestershire, Germany, Sussex and Scotland and some anxious moments connected with Brexit. We finished with an inaugural concert in a historic state library in Passau, played by Patrick Ayrton and introduced by Donald. You can watch a trailer for the film here.