Biography
Violist, educator, researcher and philanthropist Louise Lansdown is currently Assistant Head of Strings (viola) at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and Professor of viola and chamber music at the Yehudi Menuhin School (YMS).
Prior to this, Louise was Head of Strings at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2012-2023) after holding the position of Senior Lecturer at the RNCM (2001-2012). Louise is the founder and Artistic Director of the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition and Festival, launched at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in October 2014. In 2024 Louise directed the merging of the Lionel Tertis and Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions culminating in a major festival and double iteration of the competitions at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music with the Royal Sinfonia from 19-25 January 2025. The new double-bill competitions are a registered charity in the UK and have begun their work across the length and breadth of the UK running Viola days and courses for adults, students and scholars. www.tertisaronowitz.co.uk
Louise is also the founder and President of the British Viola Society https://www.britishviolasociety.co.uk/
Along with her viola students, Louise is the founder of a major distance learning education project that was initiated at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in collaboration with the Morris Isaacson Centre for Music in Soweto, South Africa called “ARCO”. The project was launched in July 2015 and was nominated for a guardian internationalization award in 2018 and a BASA22 Award in 2019 (Business and Arts South Africa). Louise Launched ARCO India in 2021, in collaboration with KM Music Conservatory, AR Rahman Foundation and the Sunshine Orchestra and ARCO Prince Albert in 2023. ARCO is a recognised non-profit organisation in South Africa. The project is currently supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, Prince Albert Community Trust, Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, Friends of Orchestral Music, D’Addario Foundation. Louise initiated the Kaleidoscope Chamber Music Festival in Prince Albert in 2025, the first solely South African music festival entirely with its raison d’etre to support the ARCO Project. The project currently teaches 80 young learners between the ages of 4-13 violin, viola, cello and double bass. ARCO Teaching and Learning Manager Elliot Tingley is based on the ground in Prince Albert alongside his role facilitating the ARCO module at the RNCM. www.arco-project.org
Louise is a trustee of the Quartet of Peace.
She plays on a French Viola c.1750, 1890 Sartory bow, both previously belonging to the South African violist Cecil Aronowitz. She has recently commissioned Antoine Gourdon to make a copy of her Aronowitz viola. Louise plays mostly chamber music and solo concerts, collaborating with violists and other musicians across the world. She commissions new music for the viola and concocts hair brain schemes to perform music by Paul Hindemith and much unknown viola music, bringing the viola to many unsuspecting and innocent people. Louise has a publishing contract from Schott and is working on a book “Hindemith and the Viola”.
She is a member of the South African “Ubuntu Ensemble” who headline the African Concert Series at Wigmore Hall. She is also Principal Violist of the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra.
Louise has recently released her first solo album on Meridian Records of unpublished, unknown music for viola by South African composers. She is soon recording her second solo album on the Meridian Label. As a result of recording this music Louise has recently started her own publishing company and has begun the process of editing and bringing this music into the published domain. “Mzansi Publishing” has released Monthati Masebe’s ‘Trials that trail”, a set of 10 pieces for solo viola to the world.
Performer
Louise is always practicing in every spare moment (often very early in the morning) and loved learning new music for her solo album recording of South African viola music released in 2024. Louise is looking forward to continuing her recordings in 2026. This includes lesser known, unknown and unpublished music by John Joubert, Allan Stephenson, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Surendran Reddy, Monthati Masebe and Priaulx Rainier.
Louise is loving being back at the Royal Northern College of Music and immersing herself in side by side chamber music and orchestral projects with students and other staff.
Louise is a proud member of the Ubuntu Ensemble, an all South African chamber music group with Andre Swanepoel, Claudia Dehnke and Pieter Schoemann (violins), Rudi de Groote, Abel Selaocoe and Elliott Bailey (cellos), Leon Bosch (double bass) and Tessa Uys (piano). Ubuntu have been involved with the “African Concert Series” since 2020 premiering new and lesser known works by African composers. Highlights have been Wigmore Hall concerts in 2023, 2024, 2025 and with another to follow in June 2026. The Ubuntu Ensemble have recently given world premieres of works by the late Peter Klatzow, David Earl and the "African Suite" by Fela Sowande (arr. Robert Matthew Walker for quintet. The ensemble are hoping to make their first commercial recording of chamber music by South African composers Peter Klatzow, Grant MacLachlan and David Earl in 2026.
Louise has also been invited to lead the viola section of the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra for tours of South Africa in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Louise’s obsession with the viola music of Paul Hindemith has led her to play concerts and give talks across the world promoting his music. This includes Hindemith’s Kuhhirtenturm in Frankfurt and the Konservatorium in Amsterdam as part of Nobuko Imai’s Hindemith Festival in 2021.
Practice and learning are part of Louise’s everyday life and she loves scales, exploring different study methods and learning the hundreds of pieces of repertoire that her students are all furiously practicing. Louise loves to read, listen and develop further ideas about baroque, classical and every style open to the performer and she is utterly transfixed on sound, a fluid left hand and the ability to punctuate and nuance with the bow. She is lucky to play on the most beautiful 1890 Sartory, Noel Burke, Fetique and Andreas Grütter baroque bows that helps ignite her imagination and inspiration.
In 2020 Louise commissioned a series of 10 pieces from the South African composer Monthati Masebe - a tribute to each of the 10 Rivonia Trialists (1963-4). “Trials that Trail” remembers these men that sacrificed their freedom in the struggle against “apartheid” in South Africa. On 23 July 2020 the last of the Rivonia Trialists, Andrew Mlangeni passed away at the age of 95.
Before moving to Birmingham Louise was a long-term member of the Pleyel Ensemble, Yeomans String Quartet and was busy free-lancing.
Louise's Instrument
Louise is extremely lucky to have an old instrument thought to be made in Paris c.1750 previously belonging to Cecil Aronowitz and Eric Rycroft. Louise has written an article below about Cecil and the story of the viola. In addition, she plays on an 1890 Sartory viola bow weighing 66 grams, a Noel Burke, a 1900 Vctr Fetique and Andres Grützmacher baroque bow. Louise has recently decided to commission Antoine to make an exact replica of her Cecil Aronowitz viola. Louise has recently visited Antoine’s workshop in Newark where she spent a day amazed by the process of measuring, photographing, scanning and studying that took place. She is incredibly excited to be part of this process with Antoine.
Teacher
Louise has been teaching since she was 19, and first held part-time teaching positions at the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre (Cape Town) and the Konservatorium, Stellenbosch University, alongside a private practice in Cape Town. Although Louise continued to teach when she moved to study at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) in 1998, she focused on performance for several years after moving to the UK. She was awarded a Junior Fellowship by the RNCM in 2000, and spent a year being mentored by the late Christopher Rowland. During this time she undertook viola, chamber music and academic teaching at the RNCM and twelve months later was offered a full-time contract as a lecturer within the School of Strings. Louise devoted her life to the RNCM from 2001-2012, teaching countless violists, chamber music groups and initiating performance projects across the globe for RNCM students. During her time at the RNCM she also held part-time teaching positions at Junior RNCM, Chethams School of Music and the University of Manchester.
In 2012 Louise was offered the position of Head of Strings, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She continued to teach six students at the RNCM for a year after starting at RBC, but otherwise began her new life in Birmingham. Louise built up a large viola class at RBC was instrumental in recruiting fantastic talent during her time at the Conservatoire. She left her post at RBC at the end of August 2023.
Louise is delighted to be sharing her viola expertise from September 2023 onwards as Assistant Head of Strings (viola) at the RNCM and Professor of Viola at the Yehudi Menuhin School as Professor of Viola. The viola mania continues with big classes in each institution and masses of viola activity planned.
During her time both in Manchester and more recently in Birmingham Louise has given classes across the world, including Yale; Penn State; Cincinnati; Central Michigan; Eastman (USA), Krakow; Blonay; Zurich; Oviedo; Tampere; Cremona; Milan; Vienna; Frankfurt (Europe), Chennai (India); Adelaide; Melbourne; Brisbane; Townsville (Australia), Chengdu; Shanghai; Kunming; Chonqing; X’ian, Xiamen; Beijing; Suzhou; Wuhan; Guangzhou; Shenzhen (China), Cape Town; Johannesburg; Pretoria; Soweto; Bloemfontein; Durban; Stellenbosch (South Africa), Tibilisi (Georgia).
From 2000-2012 Louise worked for Pro Corda, the International Chamber Music School based at Leiston Abbey, Suffolk. She started out as a chamber music coach, but also directed the Junior, Intermediate, Senior and North Courses, and for a few years held the position of Assistant Artistic Director. Since 2012 Louise has been running the Pro Corda Conservatoire Viola Course, and this course has now been renamed as the Aronowitz Viola Course, was held at Lavethan, Blisland in Cornwall in 22, 23, 24 and 25.
Since 2023 Louise has been teaching at the International Musicians Summer Programme (IMSP) in Pienza, Italy alongside wonderful colleagues from across the world.
Louise has ex-viola students playing in orchestras, chamber music groups, as soloists, leaders in education and trail-blazing musical activists across the globe. She is incredibly proud of them all!
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