Speaker
Alice Margerum handcrafts carefully-researched reconstructions of medieval and renaissance instruments. Her instruments have included harps (wire-strung, gut-strung and bray harps), lyres (bowed and plucked), rebecs, citoles, medieval fiddles, lutes, and even a clavicytherium. Her work ranges from unadorned to elaborately carved. In addition to her own reconstructions, Alice has also built instruments and provided custom carving and decorative painting for other noted luthiers. For almost 20 years, Alice researched and built early musical instruments in Britain. She trained with the harp-maker Tim Hobrough in Scotland, and studied Musical Instrument Technology at London Metropolitan University, earning a BTEC OND and HND, as well as a BSc (Hons), an MA, and a PhD. Based on her PhD research on the citole, she revised the entry for that instrument in the 2014 edition of The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Alice now lives in the United States, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.