Garth Knox – Recital

As part of V10LA Day at Kings Place, celebrated violist and composer Garth Knox is joined by fellow violists Lawrence Power, Kinga Wojdalska and Toby Cook, alongside cellist Wallis Power, for a programme exploring the remarkable expressive range of the viola and viola d’amore through music spanning three centuries.

Presented as part of V10LA Day at Kings Place, this special concert brings together some of today’s leading viola players for a celebration of one of music’s most distinctive and versatile instruments.

At its centre is violist, composer and viola d’amore pioneer Garth Knox, whose works sit alongside Marin Marais’ evocative Voix Humaines and Benjamin Dwyer’s Imagines. From the intimate reflections of Stranger to the UK premiere of San Borondón, the programme reveals the viola’s rich palette of colours and voices.

Joined by Lawrence Power, Kinga Wojdalska, Toby Cook and Wallis Power, Knox explores music that is imaginative, virtuosic and deeply expressive.

Part of Lawrence Power V10LA Day. Click here to book.

Garth Knox

Garth Knox (1956) is at the forefront of the new music scene in several different fields, both as a player and as a composer. Drawing on his vast experience as viola player of the Arditti Quartet (1990 – 1998) and the Ensemble InterContemporain, (1983 – 1990), two of the best-known international contemporary music groups in the world, and his close collaboration with most of the leading composers of today, he has become a unique composer-performer of music of many different styles, ranging from minimalist understatement to the cutting edge of new techniques and new technologies.

More recently, thanks to his interest in the viola d’amore and the medieval fiddle, his repertoire has opened up to the music of the past (medieval, Baroque) which he persuasively brings into the present. His Irish roots enable him to dialogue freely and confidently with traditional music. A natural improviser, and an intuitive composer, his music often has elements of innovative instrumental theatre.

Garth Knox’s solo and ensemble pieces have been played all over Europe, the USA and Japan. He has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet (USA), the Festival d’Automne in Paris, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the British Film Institute, Tokyo International Viola Competition (Japan).