INTERVIEW
What’s the best thing about playing with the MCO? The quality of the listening.
What is your most memorable moment with the orchestra? The last concert of my first Leif Ove tour when we finished in Hamburg with Beethoven 5th concerto. It had been a very intense ten-day project and this was the culmination. The 5th was wonderful: concentrated and exhilarating. It had that elusive quality which you always hope for but can never set out to achieve.
What is the most difficult aspect of your job? Also the most enjoyable – the endless challenge of being available as a point of reference. There’s a very attentive dynamic in MCO, so there’s corresponding pressure to make myself useful.
If you could play another instrument what would it be? Double bass, or bassoon maybe. Jealous of the bass line people.
What would you do if you weren’t a musician? Make shoes. I’m not particularly interested in shoes but love the idea of being able to present someone with a really perfectly fitting pair.
BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Truscott is a versatile violinist who shares his time between period instrument music and ‘modern’ performance, appearing with some of the finest musicians in both fields. He is concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and one of the leaders of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
In demand as a guest leader, his engagements in this capacity have included projects with the English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, The English Concert, Le Concert d’Astrée, The King's Consort and Arcangelo. He is also leader of Classical Opera, St James's Baroque and the Magdalena Consort.
A keen chamber musician, recent recordings have included a set of Purcell Trio Sonatas with Retrospect Trio, a disc of Bach chamber music with Trevor Pinnock, Emmanuel Pahud and Jonathan Manson, and one of Haydn Piano Trios with Richard Lester and Simon Crawford-Phillips.
Matthew teaches baroque violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
