Irvine Arditti (violin)

In addition to his phenomenal career as first violinist of the Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti continues to excel as an extraordinary soloist. Born in London in 1953, Irvine Arditti began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16. 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 in order to devote more time to the Arditti Quartet which he had formed while still a student.

During the past decade Irvine Arditti has given the world premières of a plethora of large scale works especially written for him. These include Xenakis' Dox Orkh and Hosokawa's Landscape III , both for violin and orchestra, as well as Ferneyhough's Terrain , Francesconi's Riti Neurali and Body Electric, Dillon's Vernal Showers and Harvey's Scena, Pauset's Vita Nova, Reynolds Aspiration and Sciarrino's Le Stagioni Artificiali, all for violin and ensemble. He has appeared with many distinguished orchestras and ensembles including the Bayerische Rundfunk, BBC Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Paris, Het Residentie den Hague, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Asko Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps , London Sinfonietta , Nieuw Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Oslo Sinfonietta, Schoenberg Ensemble. His performances of many concertos have won acclaim by their composers, in particular Ligeti and Dutilleux.

On 25th August there was a recital of the music of Biber , Berio and Paredes at the Edinburgh Festival with Rudiger Lotte and the well know German group Lyriarte.

Several performance took place in Italy in the Autumn, notably in Milan on 15th October for Milan Musica with the Nieuw Ensemble, Amsterdam of Pauset's Vita Nova. This work was repeated on the following day in the Venice Biennale with a premier by Stefano Bellon.

The Pauset work was also repeated in the Festival D'Automne in Paris on 21st October alongside another premier for violin and ensemble by the Japanese composer Chikage Imai.

In early January 2009 there were 2 performances of Berio's Corale in Madrid and Valencia with the talented young players of the JOGV orchestra from Valencia conducted by Manuel Galduf.

As well as having recorded over 160 CDs with the Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti has built an impressive catalogue of solo recordings. His CD of solo violin works by composers such as Carter, Estrada, Ferneyhough and Donatoni, as well as his recording of Nono's La Lontananza , both on the label Montaigne Auvidis, have been awarded numerous prizes. His recording of Cage's Freeman Etudes for solo violin, as part of his complete Cage violin music series for American label Mode, has made musical history. The series is now complete. The violin concertos by Berio, Xenakis and Mira, recorded in Moscow with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, are featured on a disc by Swedish label Bis.

Mode has just released Irvine Arditti's arrangement for Quartet of Cage's 44 Harmonies from Apartment House.

The complete Mode recordings of Berio's Sequenza's, on which Irvine has recorded the violin sequenza has won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis for 2007, and was awarded best contemporary music release by the Italian music magazine Amadeus in 2008.