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Matthew Barley (Cello)

Born: May 2, 1965 - near Sheffield, England

The English cellist, (Julian Joseph) Matthew Barley, was trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and the Moscow Conservatoire. He made his London concerto debut playing Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto in the Barbican Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, as finalist of the LSO-Shell competition.

Matthew Barley is internationally known as cellist, improviser, arranger, music animateur, and Artistic Director of Between The Notes. His musical world is focused on projects that connect people in different ways, blurring the boundaries that never really existed between genres and people.

As a soloist and chamber musician he has performed in over 50 countries, including appearances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Volkov) and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (Hazlewood), Melbourne Symphony (Yan Pascal Tortelier), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Tan Dun), Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Netherland Radio Symphony (Markus Stenz), Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony, Kremerata Baltica, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National (Alsop), and London Chamber Orchestra. He has performed at festivals in Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Bonn-Beethovenfest, Hong Kong, Lanaudiere, Abu Dhabi, Krakow, City of London and in recent seasons has performed at some of the world's great concert halls: London's Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Kumho Hall in Korea, Pablo Casals Hall in Tokyo, The Rudolfinium In Prague, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. A key aspect of his recitals is mixing repertoire in unusual ways, pairing J.S. Bach suites with jazz and improvisation. He is particularly interested in music with electronics, having commissioned works from many composers including Dai Fujikura, Peter Wiegold, DJ Bee, John Metcalfe and Jan Bang. He has given other premieres of pieces written for him by James MacMillan, Thomas Larcher, Detlev Glanert, John Woolrich, and Fraser Trainer.

In 2005 he toured Brett Dean’s ballet score One of the Kind (for solo-on-stage-cello and electronics) with the Netherlands Dans Theatre; in 2010 with the Basel Ballet and in 2012 with Lyon Ballet.

Collaboration - whether chamber music or with different styles of music - is an enduring passion, and, amongst others, Matthew has worked with Matthias Goerne, Katia & Marielle Labèque, Martin Frost, Viviane Hagner, Thomas Larcher, Kit Armstrong, Amjad Ali Khan, Julian Joseph, Django Bates, Ross Daly, Talvin Singh, Deep Purple’s Jon Lord, Sultan Khan, Kathryn Tickell and Nitin Sawhney.

In 1997 Matthew Barley founded Between The Notes (BTN), a performance and education group that has appeared at the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Opera House (with the Royal Ballet) and the International Symposium of Contemporary Music in Hong Kong. In 2005 the group took the lead role in a devised work, Invisible Lines, which culminated in a live-television performance at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms, alongside players from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. More recently BTN took centre stage for the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Köln Philharmonie as soloists with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln under Markus Stenz.

A major project called The Peasant Girl with his wife, Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova has seen over 40 performances worldwide. The programme features Matthew’s arrangements of gypsy and jazz as well as Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály and has been recorded for CD and DVD on Onyx Classics.

2007 saw Matthew’s debut on television as the Music Director of BBC 2’s widely acclaimed ‘Classical Star’.

His first CD on Black Box, "The Silver Swan" was an enormous critical success, followed by Reminding, a disc of Soviet music. Constant Filter (music for cello and electronics by John Metcalfe) is Matthew’s second release for Signum Classics, following the five-star success of The Dance of the Three Legged Elephants with jazz pianist Julian Joseph.

In 2013 Matthew undertook an astonishing 100-event UK tour celebrating Benjamin Britten – the itinerary included venues as diverse as a Victorian swimming pool, a lighthouse, a barn and the Wigmore Hall in London, as well as a host of educational projects in schools, a hospice, an old people’s home and a prison. The tour was accompanied by a release on Signum Classics, Around Britten, described by Sinfini as “a defining statement in modern cello playing."

Future projects include concertos with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, artist-residency at the Kassel Music Days festival on Germany, a major collaboration with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Darbar Indian Music Festival at the South Bank Centre, and the world premiere of a new Pascal Dusapin double concerto with Viktoria Mullova, with the Nederlands Radio Symphony and Markus Stenz.

“… his virtuoso control at all dynamic levels just has to be heard to be believed…” - International Record Review
I wish more people would think about music the way Matthew Barley does - The Times (London)
"Stunning cello - words cannot do justice to the strength and effect of his playing" - Capital Times (New Zealand)
"This was brilliant playing, fully in baroque style, announcing to all that here was a cellist to reckon with." - Dominion Post (New Zealand)
One of the most talented cellists I’ve ever heard - Leonard Bernstein




Source: Matthew Barley Website (June 2017); Wikipedia Website (May 2017); Photos 11, 160, 200, 242, 299, 443, 483, 663, 1111, 1191: © Nick White; Photo 01: © Ben Phillips; Photos 02, 06: © Marcus Tate; Photo 101: © Todd Amos
Contributed by
Aryeh Oron (July 2017)

Matthew Barley: Short Biography | Recordings of Instrumental Works

Links to other Sites

Matthew Barley - Cellist (Official Website)
Matthew Barley on Facebook
Matthew Barley (Wikipedia)


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Last update: Sunday, July 23, 2017 14:15