Irvine Arditti | |
|---|---|
 Arditti at a concert with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra (14 June 2014) | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 8 February 1953 London, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation | Violinist |
| Instrument | Violin |
| Years active | 1974–present |
Irvine Arditti (born 8 February 1953) is a British violinist, as well as the leader [1] and founder of the Arditti Quartet.
Arditti attended the Central Foundation Boys' School in London [2] before continuing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 where he studied with Clarence Myerscough and Manoug Parikian. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master. He left the orchestra in 1980 to devote more time to the Arditti Quartet which he had formed while still a student.
In 1988 he was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his distinguished work. The Arditti Quartet was awarded the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1999 for 'lifetime achievement' in music. An honorary fellowship followed from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 2014 was awarded an honorary doctorate to the University off Huddersfield. In 2017 he received the Charles Cros Grand Prix in honorem, which is for lifetime achievement.
Arditti has been responsible for having given the world premières of a number of large scale works specially written for him. These include Iannis Xenakis' Dox Orkh and Toshio Hosokawa's Landscape III, both for violin and orchestra, as well as Brian Ferneyhough's Terrain, Luca Francesconi's Riti Neurali and Body Electric, James Dillon's Vernal Showers, Jonathan Harvey's Scena, Brice Pauset's Vita Nova, Roger Reynolds Aspiration and Salvatore Sciarrino's Le Stagioni Artificiali all for violin and ensemble.
He has also been responsible for the creation of many solo works including both of Ferneyhough's solo violin works, Intermedio and Unsichtbare Farben. He was responsible for inspiring John Cage to complete his Freeman Etudes giving the first complete performance of them in 1991 [3] [4] and also for inspiring other composers in several pieces as Pascal Dusapin and Roger Reynolds. [5]
He has appeared as soloist with many distinguished orchestras and ensembles which include the Bayerische Rundfunk, the BBC Symphony, the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Ensemble Modern, the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de Paris, the Residentie Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Asko Ensemble, the Ensemble Contrechamps, the London Sinfonietta, the Nieuw Ensemble, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Oslo Sinfonietta, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Schoenberg Ensemble. He has performed in most major concert halls and music festival throughout the world. His performances of many concertos have won acclaim by their composers, in particular György Ligeti, [6] Henri Dutilleux, [7] and Xenakis. [8] He has recorded solo works widely, in more 30 albums, as well as having made more than 200 with the Arditti quartet. [9]
His recording of Luciano Berio's violin Sequenza, on Mode Records won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis for 2007 and was awarded best contemporary music release by the Italian music magazine Amadeus in 2008. [10] In 2009 Arditti was appointed foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. [11]
In 2014 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in the UK. [12]
Arditti is married to the prominent Mexican composer Hilda Paredes. [13] They reside in London. Irvine's son, Jake Arditti, is a noted countertenor. [14]
The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. They first became known taking into their repertoire technically challenging pieces. Over the years, there have been personnel changes but Irvine Arditti is still at the helm, leading the group. The repertoire of the group is mostly music from the last 50 years with a strong emphasis on living composers. Their aim from the beginning has been to collaborate with composers during the rehearsal process. However, unlike some other groups, it is loyal to music of a classical vein and avoids cross-genre music. The Quartet has performed in major concert halls and cultural festivals all over the world and has the longest discography of any group of its type. In 1999, it won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement, being the first and only group to date to receive this award.
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and the University of California, San Diego; he teaches at Stanford University and is a regular lecturer in the summer courses at Darmstädter Ferienkurse. He has resided in California since 1987.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, he announced his resignation from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025.
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Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
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