Rosalind Ventris

Biography

Rosalind Ventris (viola) leads a multifaceted international career performing as a soloist and chamber musician. In addition to her role at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, she is Director of Performance and Performance Studies at the University of Oxford, and previously taught at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 

Her career was launched as the youngest prizewinner at the Lionel Tertis Viola competition, aged seventeen. As a recitalist, she has appeared at the Bozar, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, Slovak Philharmonic and Concertgebouw. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with the European Union Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru, l’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, and the Belgian National Orchestra. A keen chamber musician, Rosalind has collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida at Marlboro Festival, Tabea Zimmermann, Garth Knox, and Thomas Hoppe at Wigmore Hall, the Arcanto Quartett at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, and Gerhard Schultz at the Salzburg Festival.

Rosalind frequently performs as part of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, which brings together some of the finest young chamber musicians in new and varied formations, with a specific and ardent commitment to celebrating diversity. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective is a Wigmore Hall Associate Ensemble. Rosalind has been the violist of the flute, viola and harp trio, Trio Anima, since 2012. The trio has a longstanding commitment to commissioning new works for their formation and recently recorded an album form Tŷ Cerdd. She has collaborated with internationally-renowned artists such as Mitsuko Uchida (Malboro Festival), Tabea Zimmermann, Garth Knox, Thomas Hoppe (Wigmore Hall), the Arcanto Quartett (Beethovenhaus) and Gerhard Schultz (Salzburg Festival).  Her work as a guest principal violist includes projects with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Recordings Rosalind has featured on as a chamber musician have received favourable reviews in the national and international press, as well as industry magazines (The Sunday Times Best Recordings of 2019, Editor’s Choice, Gramophone). Rosalind has recorded for Delphian, Signum and Navona record labels, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Lyric FM, and NPO Radio 4.

Rosalind also enjoys exciting contemporary music collaborations, having performed alongside composers Garth Knox and Sally Beamish. As a former founder member of the Albion Quartet she recorded Richard Blackford’s Kalon with the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum (Prague). She has also premiered several works by Edwin Roxburgh at major London venues, and recently gave the premiere of a new work by Rory Boyle with Trio Anima. In December 2020 Rosalind recorded her debut album, featuring outstanding works by leading female contemporary and twentieth-century composers inspired by nature, folk music and dance.

As an artist in residence at Yellowbarn USA she examined the early recordings of the National Gramophonic Society, and the impact this can have on performance. She was an Edison Fellow at the British Library, where she is researching historical recordings of the Bohemian quartet. In addition to her current teaching positions, Rosalind has also taught at King’s College London on the Advanced Performance Course, at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (masterclasses in chamber music and viola, and chamber music coaching), works as a tutor for the Benedetti Foundation and has given masterclasses for Ryedale Festival, Cowbridge Music Festival and Aldeburgh Music.

A winner of multiple prizes, Rosalind received Yuri Bashmet’s ‘President’s Prize’ at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. A graduate of Cambridge University and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Rosalind received numerous awards during her studies and after, including the Max and Peggy Morgan Prize, the Hattori Foundation, Martin Musical Scholarship Fund, Help Musicians UK, Kirckman Concert Society, English Speaking Union, Stanley Picker Trust, Countess of Munster Trust, Park Lane Group, and the Philip & Dorothy Green Making Music Award (AYCA).

She had the privilege to study with David Takeno, Kim Kashkashian and Miguel da Silva and participated in masterclasses led by Tabea Zimmermann, Nobuko Imai, Menahem Pressler, Steven Isserlis, Thomas Riebl and Gabor Takács-Nagy. She is one of the Artistic Directors of the Cowbridge Music Festival.