Biography
Louise Lansdown is a violist, educator, researcher, and philanthropist. She is Assistant Head of Strings (Viola) at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and Professor of Viola at the Yehudi Menuhin School (YMS).
Formerly Head of Strings at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2012–2023) and Senior Lecturer at the RNCM (2001–2012), Louise is Executive Artistic Director and founder of the Lionel Tertis and Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions at The Glasshouse, Gateshead (Jan 2025). Founder and President of the British Viola Society, she launched The BIG Viola Project (2023) and directs the Aronowitz Viola Course in Cornwall. She is also a trustee of the Quartet of Peace.
Louise founded the international teaching initiative ARCO, starting with ARCO Soweto (2015) and ARCO India (2021), now partnered with the RNCM and expanding to Prince Albert, South Africa, alongside the new Kaleidoscope: Prince Albert Kamermusiek Fees (Aug 2025).
She performs on a c.1750 French viola and an 1890 Sartory bow once owned by Cecil Aronowitz, and plays with the Ubuntu Ensemble and the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra. Her debut album Mzansi Viola (Meridian Records) features South African premieres, with Volume II due in 2025.
Originally from Cape Town, Louise studied at the University of Stellenbosch and the RNCM, completing a PhD at the University of Manchester on Paul Hindemith’s early viola works. Her forthcoming book, Hindemith and the Viola, will be published by Schott.
Performer
Louise is always practicing in every spare moment (often very early in the morning) and is loving learning new music she is recording for her solo album of South African viola music coming up in 2024. This includes lesser known, unknown and unpublished music by John Joubert, Allan Stephenson, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Surendran Reddy, Monthati Masebe and Priaulx Rainier.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 RNCM and immersing herself in side by side chamber music and orchestral projects with students and other staff. She recorded her first solo album in July 2024 on the Meridian Label of all South African viola music composed by Hendrik Hofmeyr, Allan Stephenson, Monthati Masebe, Priaulx Rainier, John Joubert and Surendran Reddy.
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 and with another to follow in July 2025. 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 making their first commercial recording of chamber music by South African composers Peter Klatzow, Grant MacLachlan and David Earl in June 2025.
Louise has also been invited to lead the viola section of the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra for tours of South Africa in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
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 and will sell her other Antoine viola in due course. 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!
.jpg/:/rs=w:370,cg:true,m)
