Matthew Truscott (2 February)
Equally at home with baroque violin as with its later steel-strung cousin, Matthew Truscott is a sought-after leader of ‘period’ orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as well as ‘modern’ ensembles like the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
He studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music, the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague and in Bloomington Indiana. His teachers were Simon Standage, Erich Gruenberg, Vera Beths and Mauricio Fucs. He is Professor of Violin, specialising in Historical Performance, at the Royal Academy of Music.
His integrity as a musician is well summed-up by his description of the role of an orchestral concert master of one of the world’s most democratic ensembles: ‘…[it’s] the endless challenge of being available as a point of reference. There’s a very attentive dynamic in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, so there’s a corresponding pressure to make myself useful’. Such a responsibility inevitably brings pressures. How to relieve them outside a musical life? ‘I’d like to make shoes. I’m not particularly interested in them but love the idea of being able to present someone with a really perfectly-fitting pair’. He talks to Bobby Child.
