Viola da Gamba Player Liam Byrne Wins €70,000 Glenn Gould Fellowship

The fellowship, which is offered by the city of Weimar, will allow Byrne to research, play, and record English lyre-viol repertoire of the 17th century

Viola da gamba player Liam Byrne was recently named as the recipient of the 2024 Glenn Gould Fellowship. The scholarship, which is awarded biennially by the city of Weimar, Germany, facilitates the development of an innovative media project that involves the works of J. S. Bach, or the Baroque period more broadly.

Byrne's project will center on the English lyre-viol repertoire of the 17th century. He will focus his efforts on the exploration of recording this music, asking how the viola da gamba sound — which is not easily captured using traditional recording techniques — might be best represented in this medium.

Inspired by Glenn Gould's relationship with the concept of recording, Byrne will also ask wider questions about the artificial and constructive nature of trying to represent an acoustic instrument in the studio.

Liam Byrne has appeared with the Huelgas Ensemble, Dunedin Consort, Academy of Ancient Music, Gabrieli Consort, The Sixteen, and the viol consorts Fretwork, Phantasm, L’Acheron, Hathor Consort, and Concordia, among others.

A professor of viola da gamba at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Byrne was the first musician to be named artist-in-residence at the city's Victoria and Albert Museum. He also plays contemporary music and has received commissions from David Lang, Donnacha Dennehy, and Nico Muhly, among others.

The two previous recipients of the Glenn Gould Fellowship are the Irish pianist Peter Tuite (2020) and the German cellist Tanja Tetzlaff (2022).

"The scholarship offers a great opportunity to create something that goes beyond what is possible in everyday professional life," Byrne said. "With time and support to question all aspects of the recording process, we have the opportunity to do something truly new and hopefully capture some aspects of this esoteric repertoire that have never been heard before."

"Once again the jury succeeded in electing a creative and extremely interesting musician as the new Fellow," said Ralf Kirsten, Weimar's mayor. "The city of Weimar warmly welcomes viol player Liam Byrne and would like to thank the Philip Loubser Foundation for establishing and funding the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship."