



Timothy Ridout
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“Violist Timothy Ridout shines with virtuosity.”
(Neueste Nachrichten, January 2019)
In the 24/25 season, highlights include the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s Viola Concerto ‘Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth’ at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati, as well as performances of Bartók Viola Concerto with Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Orchestra della Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, Norrlandsoperan, Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife and Taipei Symphony, Walton
Viola Concerto with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Berner Symphonie-Orchester and Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with Ensemble Resonanz, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg and Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra.
Recent seasons have seen Ridout tour across Europe, Asia, USA, Canada, South America and Australia, appearing with orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Hamburger Symphoniker,
Camerata Salzburg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Hallé, Orchestre National Capitole Toulouse, WDR Sinfonieorchester, BBC Philharmonic, and Philharmonia Orchestra. Across his engagements, he has worked with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Manze, Riccardo Minasi, Sir András Schiff, Lionel Bringuier, Sylvain Cambreling, Nicholas Collon, David Zinman, and Kazuki Yamada.
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An iconic chamber musician, Ridout continues to present both solo and ensemble programmes across venues such as Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and Alice Tully Hall New York.
His partners include Janine Jansen, Isabelle Faust, Kian Soltani, Pablo Ferrández, Denis Kozhukhin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Federico Coli and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In addition to these engagements, Ridout starts his tenure as one of Konzerthaus Dortmund’s Junge Wilde, which champions young, rising stars in the classical music world. He appears at festivals across Europe include his Verbier,
Salzburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rosendal and a residency at the Ryedale Festival in summer 2025.
Known for his wide ranging discography, Ridout regularly records for Harmonia Mundi, and has won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, arranged for Viola by Lionel Tertis, in the concerto category in 2023. In 2024 Ridout released an album which pays tribute to the great violist Lionel Tertis. Previous recordings comprise of works by Prokofiev, Schumann, Britten, Vaughan-Williams and see Ridout collaborating BBC Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg as well as Pianists Frank Dupree and James Baillieu. In February 2025 he will release his first album for unaccompanied Viola with works by Britten, Shaw, Telemannn and Bach.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and Kronberg Academy, he has earned accolades such as First Prize at both the Lionel Tertis and Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions. Ridout is a former BBC New Generation Artist and also a recipient of the Borletti Buitoni Trust Fellowship. He was the inaugural recipient of Hamburger Symphoniker’s Sir Jeffrey Tate Prize, and also took part in Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program.
Timothy Ridout performs on a 1565 – 75 viola by Peregrino di Zanetto, generously on loan from a patron of the Beare’s International Violin Society.
With his remarkable range and commitment to expanding the viola repertoire, Ridout’s performances this season are poised to captivate audiences worldwide.
HarrisonParrott represents Timothy Ridout for worldwide general management.
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“So fluent, so confident, so glad to be alive”
“A skilled and thoughtful player, he artfully captures the myriad colours and moods of this once-misunderstood instrument.”
“A lovingly curated tribute to one of the past’s finest viola players, Lionel Tertis, from one of today’s, Timothy Ridout: a generously filled album of glorious music.”
“Anyone who enjoys fine string playing shouldn’t hesitate to sample these performances.”
“This is a magisterial performance in anyone’s book.”
“As prodigious in Berlioz as in Elgar and Bloch […] amazing technical mastery, eloquence and lyricism […] The warmth, maturity and intense expressiveness are marvellous.”
“Ridout scores here with his brilliantly nimble fingerwork and precise note-separation. His slow movement is heartfelt, and the finale crackles with insightful, immaculately executed solo playing.”
“Ridout makes the scherzo fabulously nimble and precise, and the long aching lines of the Adagio even more plangent.”
“[Timothy Ridout] has a knack for playing almost unplayable scores with a disarming naturalness.”
“With just a few strokes of his bow, the British Timothy Ridout has made a place for himself in the very closed circle of great violists. His youthful brilliance […], his impatient assurance, and above all the natural authority of a style of playing that is both totally free and accomplished, kept the audience in the Salle Cortot, in Paris, in suspense”
“Undoubted star of the second half was violist Timothy Ridout, whose performance of Britten’s Lachrymae, mercurial yet autumnally intoxicating, was strengthened by prefacing it with Manze’s own arrangement of the Dowland song, “If my complaints could passions move”, on which the Britten is based.”
“The singers of the [Scottish Chamber Orchestra] Chorus got the tone just right, by turns rich, alluring or ardent; and Timothy Ridout’s viola surged in and out of the texture in a way that brought it to life without drawing attention to himself.”
“Timothy Ridout gave a performance of exceptional eloquence and maturity, and Downie Dear ensured that the players, both in their accompaniment and in the expansive orchestral sections, matched Ridout in sensitivity. The sheer beauty of it all was mesmerising and, by the end, profoundly moving.”
“Ridout’s transcription makes telling changes of register in the vocal line; this is supreme vindication of what musical imagination can do, even to works unfamiliar from their original formats.”
“In Tempo primo it was the viola’s turn. Timothy Ridout stood out with a deeply emotional and romantic sound. Perhaps this movement was the best of the concert. Delicate, romantic … ”
“I confess to having capitulated unconditionally to this heartfelt rendition of Schumann’s masterful song cycle on the viola. Ridout varies his sound astutely on repeated verses, bringing forth from his Peregrino Di Zanetto instrument myriad colours that bear testimony to his profound love of this music.”
“Timothy Ridout proved the ideal interpreter. Youthful and technically pitch perfect, he was also able to bring a sensitivity to his interpretation that emphasised a sense of fragility in the work that can sometimes be missed.”
A Poet’s Love (Harmonia Mundi)
“Ridout has made his own, highly effective arrangement of Schumann’s song cycle from 1840, Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love). At times he uses the viola’s flowing, higher register. Yet in a song such as Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome, with its grand aural depiction of Cologne Cathedral, he exploits the instrument’s baritonal qualities, always making the viola sing.”
A Poet’s Love (Harmonia Mundi)
“It is absolutely magnificent how Ridout’s viola transforms chameleon-like to fit the character of each number from Prokofiev’s ballet. It shows how confident he plays and how wide his color palette is… Detached from the text, one experiences Dichterliebe in a performance that is probably hard to beat for richness of nuance. And, believe me, one holds one’s breath again and again, so deeply emotional, so gripping is the performance. This fine work, this art of tasteful nuance and of communicating the depth of one’s own experience, results in a superior interpretation of Schumann’s music.”
“The irregular rhythms of Martinů’s Rhapsody-Concerto sound completely natural in Ridout’s hands as he alternates between unobstructive technical brilliance in the fast sections and a disarmingly gorgeous singing tone in the piece’s concluding moments.”
‘There was a persuasive sense of journeying towards a clear ‘end’: and, in the closing moments the frenetic alternation of arpeggiation and chordal outbursts cleared into a pizzicato conclusion of striking beauty and resonance.’
“The young violist Timothy Ridout plays four striking works with viola. In his the mid-twenties, he is already the recipient of many awards. It is therefore not surprising that he not only performs with a sophisticated technique, but presents a very personal interpretation.”
“You don’t even have to hear Timothy Ridout. You can see what he has to say with his instrument […]”
“[…] a performer whose touch could not be surer and whose musical instinct inspires confidence on every level, all conveyed through 24-carat dark-gold tone. Ridout won the Lionel Tertis Viola Competition a few years back and I think Tertis himself would be proud.“
“Violist Timothy Ridout shines with virtuosity.”
“Master virtuoso.”
“Top performances were in abundance… Amongst the standouts was Timothy Ridout’s transfixing rendition of Britten’s Lachrymae. Closing a concert intended as an elegy to Benjamin Britten on the very date of the composer’s 100th birthday, the young British violist soared to new heights in a rendition that brought many to tears, a virtual recreation of the Dowland text, ‘Flow my tears’.”
“I was strongly impressed by the gorgeous singing tone that Timothy Ridout produced. Furthermore, he was soulful and sensitive in his delivery of the music… I greatly admired Timothy Ridout’s performance of this great concerto [Walton]… He was able to deliver when virtuosity was required, but what will live longest in my memory was his wonderful response to the many ardently lyrical passages.”
“…Ridout tilting Walton’s final chord from minor to major in such an understated way that it became the most modest of triumphs.”
“This disc contains some of the best music written for the viola in the 19th Century… [Ridout] is a fine, young violist with a solid tone, perfect intonation, solid technique, and charisma. I look forward to hearing more from him.”
“A gorgeous tone, a thoughtful approach to phrasing and an infectious sense of impetuosity.”
“Ridout displays a consistently imaginative ear for tonal colours and an exciting variety of vibrato … clearly a talent to follow.”
“Timothy Ridout, with his technical perfection and beautifully warm and soft tone, perfectly matched the Romantic yearning [of Cecil Forsyth’s Viola Concerto in G minor].”