PROJECTS

‘Hindemith Cavalcade’ a project involving twenty-three RNCM students and Dr Luitgard Schader, a musicologist from the Hindemith Institute, Frankfurt travelled to the 37th International Viola Congress in South Africa to perform the complete viola works (including all the chamber music with viola) by Paul Hindemith. The project included eleven concerts, a full-length play, Der Bratschenfimmel written by Hindemith, pre-concert talks and two lecture-recitals. The ‘Hindemith Cavalcade’ was an enormous undertaking, eighteen months in the making, hundreds of hours organising programmes, rehearsals, teaching, researching, travelling to the Hindemith Institute in Frankfurt and organising flights, accommodation and all other details related to the tour. RNCM students learnt an incredible amount preparing for the recitals and received rave reviews and positive feedback from the international violists in attendance.

Louise visited Yale University in January 2010 for the first time and had the opportunity to study the complete Paul Hindemith Collection. The result of this visit was an invitation to deliver a talk and concerts on Hindemith’s birthday (16 November 2010) at Yale with RNCM students.

This was a collaborative project with Yale University in November 2010. A group of ten RNCM students travelled with Louise to  New York, having lessons from Samuel Rhodes (violist of the Juilliard Quartet) and Paul Neubauer (New York Philharmonic). At Yale, lessons from Ettore Causa,  a lecture on Hindemith, with the visit culminating in an evening recital in the Sudler Hall on the anniversary of Hindemith’s 115th Birthday.

In November 2011 Louise organized for 12 RNCM students to deliver a week-long series of concerts in Frankfurt, Hanau, Mainz and Leipzig to coincide with Hindemith’s Birthday Celebrations, working with the Hindemith Institute in Frankfurt. This was a  collaboration with staff and students from the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt, performing much rarely heard solo and chamber music by Paul Hindemith. All concerts were reviewed in national German newspapers. RNCM students had lessons from Roland Glassl (Frankfurt) and Tatjana Masurenko (Leipzig) while Louise gave lessons to students in both institutions on an Erasmus Staff Exchange.

Collaborative project between the Britten-Pears Foundation and Pro Corda, International Chamber Music Academy based at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk initiated by myself as Director of Chamber Music at Pro Corda.  The Pro Corda/Britten-Pears Foundation collaborative project came to fruition during the summer of 2009. Students from the Primary (age 10-12), Junior (age 12-14), Intermediate (age 14-16) and Senior Courses (age 16-18) were privileged to be the first people to ever perform a selection of Benjamin Britten’s juvenile chamber music. Since there are over 800 early works by Benjamin Britten, Pro Corda was advised as to which music was most significant and after lengthy afternoon meetings a final list of compositions to be performed was drawn up. The music selected was a veritable journey through the childhood fantasies, woes, tribulations and adolescent dramas of Benjamin Britten, age ten to eighteen. This project involved over 350 students between the ages of ten to eighteen (2009).

In 2007 Louise founded the English Viola Society, and five years later in 2012, the EVS became the British Viola Society. The late John White was the first Honorary President of the BVS, and more recently the composer and violist Sally Beamish has taken over the role. The BVS has gone from strength to strength with a fantastic website, dedicated committee; monthly online Newsletter, brilliant discounts, offers from various organisations and a myriad of activities and ventures that it supports. Including the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions (2014, 2017 2021 and 2025), 2025 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the International Viola Congresses held in Stellenbosch, South Africa (2009); Krakow, Poland (2013); Porto, Portugal (2014); Cremona, Italy (2016) and Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2018) and Paris (2026).

It was 26 December 2003 when my journey with Cecil Aronowitz’s viola began. My dear friend Michael Freyhan met me at Euston Station (en route to one of the infamous Pro Corda Courses in Suffolk!) and we drove to an address in North West London to fetch this special instrument. It was either incredibly good or bad luck that I had just bought a viola made especially for me by the then Newark based luthier Glen Collins two days previously. I had saved prudently for several years in order to buy Glen’s viola and the completely unexpected appearance of Cecil’s instrument presented a wonderful yet slightly frightening prospect….

It was Christmas Day 2003 and as was customary I called Eric Rycroft (one of my beloved viola professors from South Africa who had owned and played on Cecil’s viola since 1983) in Cape Town. It had been a very tough year as his sister Anne Rycroft (also a violist and member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra) had died in November 2003, and it was Anne who had been playing on the viola since the late 1990s.

Suddenly I was having a lifetime of Christmases all wrapped up into one. Not one, but two incredible violas! It took quite some time to tame Cecil’s viola which is made of spirited and rather highly-strung stuff. But, when he is in a good mood (and more importantly, when I am on form) there is no one quite like him. We have been together for seventeen years now! Sadly, Eric Rycroft passed away in Pretoria, South Africa in August 2020.

The inaugural Cecil Aronowitz International Competition and Festival took place in October 2014, the second in November 2017 and the third is planned for 14-20 November 2020 at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. The 2014 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition was won by 19-year-old Timothy Ridout, whilst a student at London’s Royal Academy of Music.

The 2017 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition was won by 18 year old Emma Wernig, from the United States.

The 2020 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition was postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally took place from 6-12 November 2021 at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. The 2021 competition was won by 22-year old British violist Edgar Francis.

This competition week was also going to be host to two extensive live festivals, one a schools tour with a production of Romeo and Juliet, and the other a tour with Timothy Ridout performing and visiting significant viola composers and players birthplaces and towns around England. Instead, Romeo and Juliet, recorded and created during lockdown with musicians and actors recording in isolation. Additionally, the "teaser" video for Cinderella No More: The English Viola Legacy, a six-episode documentary on the history of the viola in England, recorded with Timothy Ridout and James Baillieu in Benjamin Britten's Library at The Red House, Aldeburgh in late 2020. Both productions will be available and free to all.

My philosophy in life: anything is possible if you want it badly enough and no amount of work or effort is too much if something is worth it. I believe entirely in Carpe Diem – for better or worse. Taught to me by many, but in particular my teachers back in South Africa. Jack de Wet and Eric Rycroft come to mind – thank you a billion times over. This competition is an investment in future generations of young violists and a dedication to a great musician and human being – Cecil Aronowitz.

As of late 2023 it was announced that the Cecil Aronowitz and Lionel Tertis International Viola Competitions were joining forces, and although they are both retaining their individual identities they have recently taken place at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music 19-25 January 2025. Please see the new website with full application details and requirements. My new role is Executive Artistic Director of both the Aronowitz and Tertis Competitions.