The Malta Fine Instrument Foundation was created in 2018 by Reggie Clews and Niam Chauhan, two individuals both highly interested in the violin/music world.

The foundation recognises the positive benefits that a good, quality instrument can bring to a musician regarding their confidence, comfort, status, and especially progress! There are a variety of circumstances that present issues for musicians in Malta:

There is a lack of music shops in Malta which specialise in selling violin family instruments, meaning that more-advanced players might have to travel abroad to seek better instruments. Naturally, this is expensive and not ideal.
Relative to other European countries and despite being an MEDC, Maltese musicians have lower average incomes and this increases the difficulty of a musician being able to afford an upgrade instrument.

What can we offer?

Our foundation’s main aim is to provide instruments of high quality to developing and dedicated musicians in Malta to help bridge the transition from a student instrument and its limitations to performing on a professional quality level instrument. We want to help generate awareness and interest in the great makers and their instruments through educational presentations and events that display fine instruments and bring them to Malta for the Maltese audience to see and hear. The society will ALSO support and help musicians to develop by offering publicity and opportunities to perform formal recitals.

The instruments the foundation will loan out will span the entire range of orchestral stringed instruments, including violins, violas, cellos, double basses and bows

Recipients may apply who ideally, (but not necessarily) meet the following criteria:

The recipients should be full-time musicians, having gone through formal performance education, OR intend to become full-time musicians, and go through formal performance education.
They must contribute regularly to the Malta music scene.
The instruments will be loaned for a period of 1 year at a time.
The loaned instrument’s must be taken to the foundation at least once a year for a luthier check-up to ensure that they are still in suitable condition, and service them where necessary to help maintain them for many more years of functional use.
The recipients should perform a minimum of 1 recital every year during the loan of their instrument.

Other benefits:

Through providing fine instruments to our recipients, the foundation wants to help push the general quality of music performance in Malta to new limits; it’s only right for a country so well known for its art, culture, and heritage.

As mentioned above, the recipients have the opportunity to perform at least 2 solo recitals during their loan period, as official foundation events. The more recipients we have, the more music events there are across the year for people in Malta (both citizens and visitors) to attend and experience. This will indirectly increase the amount of income generated from the Maltese art’s sector.

With a foundation founded by two violin enthusiasts, we want nothing more than to raise the popularity of the violin-family instruments and their music in Malta.

Our intentions with this are to help raise the profile of Malta’s music scene, eventually to the point of global merit.

The foundation is essentially fighting to solve many of the difficulties that violin-family musicians in Malta face, and with having the ability to support a vast number of musicians, we hope to inspire & encourage the next generations of musicians to pursue a full-time career in music.