Tamsin Waley-Cohen, violin

Biography

Described by the Guardian as a performer of "fearless intensity", former ECHO Rising Star Tamsin Waley-Cohen has established herself as one of the most insightful and versatile young British violinists.

Last season, Tamsin made her debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ben Gernon, performing and recording the world premiere of a new violin concerto by British composer Richard Blackford, which has recently been released by Signum Records, whilst in 2018/19 she visits Japan for her debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, with whom she performs Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto under Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi. She also makes her debut with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Ryan Bancroft and collaborates again with Ben Gernon, performing Mozart’s 5th violin concerto with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra.

She has recently performed with numerous orchestras, including the Hallé Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

Tamsin’s constant ambition to explore new artistic goals has led her to build up a wide ranging chamber music network and in 2016, she founded a new string quartet, the Albion Quartet, which has already made its debuts at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, and Aldeburgh Festival. Her interest in contemporary music has led to strong relationships with composers including the late Oliver Knussen – who wrote a new work for violin and piano for her 2016 ECHO tour, – and Huw Watkins, who is her duo partner, and will write a new work for her to be premiered at Wigmore Hall in 2020. Other regular chamber partners include James Baillieu, Camille Thomas and Annelien van Wauwe. Tamsin is also Artistic Director of the Honeymead Festival on Exmoor, now in it’s 12th year.

In the past season she returned to Wigmore Hall, Saffron Hall, Stratford Music Festival, Music in the Round, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and presented a programme of violin duos exploring the relationships between classical, folk, and improvised music, with Hugo Ticciati at Hull City of Culture 2018. The forthcoming season sees her perform with Huw Watkins at the Frick Collection in New York and at London’s Kings Place, where she is also continuing the residency with her Albion Quartet. She also tours both Italy and China in spring 2019.

Together with her sister, composer Freya Waley-Cohen and architects Finbarr O’Dempsey and Andrew Skulina, she held an open space residency at Aldeburgh for 3 years, where they developed “Permutations”, a roaming performance artwork including a new piece of music for six recorded violin parts, composed in parallel with the design of six chambers which form its acoustic setting. This will be touring throughout the UK this year, beginning at Dartington Festival in August 2018.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen is a recording artist for Signum Records. She has released a number of discs for the label, including most recently works by Janáček, Dvořák and Suk with Huw Watkins, and a recording of American violin concertos by John Adams and Roy Harris – shortlisted for a Gramophone Award and described in Gramophone Magazine as “one of the most absorbing concerto discs for years” - for which she has collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Litton. Future recording plans include the complete original works of CPE Bach for keyboard and violin with James Baillieu, and a complete Beethoven cycle with Huw Watkins.

Born in London, Tamsin’s teachers have included Itzhak Rashkovsky, Andras Keller, and Ruggiero Ricci.

May 2019. Please discard any previously dated materials.