(biography revised January 2004)

Violist da gamba and barytonist Roland Hutchinson has received consistent praise in the press for the "eloquence and virtuosity" of his playing, his "spry and elegant technique", and "a lovely, pure and ringing tone" as well as the "extraordinary vigor" and "passionate feeling" of his performances.

Mr. Hutchinson's training included viola da gamba studies with the noted American teachers Sarah Cunningham and John Hsu. He studied musicology and performance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Stanford University. He has performed on viola da gamba with Duo Chelyum, the American Virtuosi, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), the Bach Aria Group, and the Boston Camerata, and can be heard on compact disks from Centaur Records and Disques Erato.

Mr. Hutchinson has taught viola da gamba at Stanford University, at Sarah Lawrence College, and at Montclair (New Jersey) State University and he has given lecture-demonstrations at the Juilliard School (New York) on the viola da gamba, the baryton, and historical string technique.

In recent years he has also been dabbling in composition, producing anthems and fuging tunes inspired by the vernacular psalmody of 18th-century England and America that have been enthusiastically received by singers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Mr. Hutchinson has also become increasingly active as a performer the modern viola, an instrument on which his early training included study with Gennady Kleyman, Nathan Weiner, Frances Hahn, and Armand Roth, and chamber music coaching with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld, Eric Rosenblith, and violist Marcus Thompson.

In demand as an orchestral violist and section leader, in Fall 2003 he was appointed as Assistant Director and Musicological Advisor to the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey, a community-based modern-instrument ensemble.

###