Elisabeth Smalt

Elisabeth Smalt enjoys a versatile and well-rounded career as a viola player in chamber ensembles. She is at home in a wide range of styles, from performances on period instruments to newly written works. Her first concert with Oxalys was in 1996 and she has remained a member of the ensemble ever since. Elisabeth Smalt also performs with the Van Swieten Society, a collective playing on authentic 19th-century instruments, the Prisma String Trio, the Luna String Quartet, focussing on new music, and the Wittgenstein Project, dedicated to chamber music commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein. She also performs in duos with pianists Riko Fukuda and Keiko Shichijo. She was director of the KlankKleurFestival in Amsterdam from 2005 to 2011, which strove to create a creative synergy between visual artists and chamber musicians. Elisabeth Smalt is currently artistic director of the Scordatura Ensemble, which specialises in music with tunings that deviate from the Western 12-tone scale. Scordatura first made headlines with the Amsterdam Partch Project, a concert series of works by the eccentric 20th-century American composer Harry Partch. Elisabeth finds all stylistic periods of classical music both interesting and inspiring; she loves to bring unknown chamber works into the light of day. Her adventurous spirit and passion for contemporary music have led her to commission numerous new works; she has premiered several works for solo viola — some composed especially for her — by composers such as Horatiu Radulescu, James Tenney, Lou Harrison, Frank Denyer, Ig Henneman, Judith Ring, Kevin Volans, Christopher Fox, Deirdre McKay, Christian Wolff, Lou Harrison, Phill Niblock, Yannis Kyriakides, Calliope Tsoupaki and Patrick Ozzard-Low. Elisabeth Smalt's discography includes more than 50 solo and chamber music recordings, several of which have won awards.