Martin Riseley

“Ravel’s Tzigane was a technical showpiece for violinist Riseley. His double-stopping, glissandi, and left-handed pizzicato in gypsy style excited the audience to wild, foot stomping applause.” Margot Hannigan, Nelson Mail

Well known and loved by Edmonton audiences, former ESO concertmaster Martin Riseley, from New Zealand, studied with English violinist Carl Pini and Polish violinist Jan Tawroscewicz. In 1988, Martin won the Television New Zealand Young Musicians Competition and Australian Guarantee Corporation Young Achievers Award, and the following year went to the Juilliard School in New York where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and Piotr Milewski. In 1996, Martin was awarded his Doctorate of Musical Arts degree.

Martin Riseley has an illustrious international solo and chamber music career in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Britain, México, the US and Canada. From 1994 until 2010, Martin was Concertmaster of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and spent a year as Associate Concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra under Pinchas Zukerman in Ottawa. He was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Alberta, where he surveyed the complete literature for piano and strings by Brahms and Beethoven.

In 2010, Martin Riseley was appointed Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, New Zealand. Recent performances include the New Zealand première of The Red Violin Chaconne of Corigliano, and solo recitals throughout New Zealand of the Paganini Caprices. His latest recordings include Stradivariazioni and an album of Douglas Lilburn’s string chamber works. The première recording of Jack Body’s Meditations on Michelangelo will be released in 2012, with Martin Riseley as soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

• The application process is now closed.
• We've received 20 applications, and we will let all applicants know if they've been successful in advancing by mid January 2011.
• Strings Brochures are available on the download page.