Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen has always pulled the strings
OME people know their future career almost from the cradle, and that was true of Tamsin Waley-Cohen. “I was just two when I saw a violin being played on the Proms, on television, and I was utterly fascinated by the sounds it made. It was so expressive, like a voice,” she says.
She began pestering her parents (theatre-manager father, sculptor mother), who, at first, didn’t take her seriously, but who eventually realised that their daughter was serious and so they arranged lessons. She hasn’t looked back, but she had a normal childhood, too.
“I went to an ordinary school, grew up enjoying The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, all that sort of thing,” she says. But studying at the Royal College of Music, under teachers like Itzhak Rashkovsky (“He taught me that music should really speak,”), Ruggiero Ricci, and András Keller, kept her steadily on one path.
Now, the gifted soloist enjoys a busy and varied life, not only playing with the Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, and BBC orchestras, but recording for Signum, founding the Honeymead Festival, and being artistic director of the Sunday Series, at London’s Tricycle Theatre.
She also holds an open-space residency at Aldeburgh, with her sister, composer Freya Waley-Cohen. And she has just received the ECHO (European Concert Halls Organisation) Rising Stars Award, via which she will see embark on a tour across Europe later this year.
Francis Humphreys, founder and director of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, is delighted to have secured her for this year’s event. “I first heard her on CD, and liked that so much, I went over to Bath to hear her playing solo Bach in an art gallery. I was so impressed, I invited her to Bantry.”
What Humphreys likes about Waley-Cohen is that she is very good at devising programmes, and is not afraid to tackle a great variety of music.
“Her latest solo recording featured Bartok, George Benjamin, Penderecki, Elliott Carter and Kurtag. Also, she enjoys playing quartet music, which is a great sign of a true chamber musician.”
It is going to be Waley-Cohen’s first time at the Bantry festival, and she says is looking forward to it. “I hear that it’s very informal and relaxed, and I’m really looking forward to being part of that.”
Travelling with her, of course, never out of her sight for an instant, will be her magnificent, 1721 Stradivarius.
“I’m very lucky to have this to play. I’m its current custodian. I started playing it in 2007, on a long-term loan from a trust, so it is being used as it is meant to be used.”
Priceless instruments like this need to be played, she says. “You can really tell if one has been locked away in a bank vault; you have to wake it up, bring it back to life with your playing. The difference in sound, created by something like this, is incredible.”
It came to her, she says, because she had been a student of the previous player, Lorand Fenyves, and the trust was happy to pass it on to such a fitting custodian.
Waley-Cohen says that even a layperson would be able to appreciate the difference in sound created by such a rare instrument.
“The possibilities are almost endless, in terms of sound and expression. It enables me to convey the composer’s intentions in more detail and more depth. It’s really exciting.”
Waley-Cohen has a busy programme in West Cork, performing at least half a dozen times (some already sold out); then, it’s back to the UK, for more concerts, before starting her European tour in the autumn.
After that, Mexico and New Zealand. “Yes, a lot of time in airports. It takes me about ten minutes to pack a bag.”
- www.westcorkmusic.ie
