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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.

A California native, Roland now hangs out his shield in Montclair as the Garden State’s foremost exponent of the viola da gamba. Back in the 20th century, he studied viol with Sarah Cunningham and John Hsu while also forming his own ideas about viol technique and tone production through extensive study of 16th, 17th, and 18th-century sources. He has taught viola da gamba at Stanford University, at Sarah Lawrence College, at Montclair (New Jersey) State University, and at numerous workshops and summer courses sponsored by the Viola da Gamba Society of America and its regional chapters, and he has given lecture-demonstrations at the Juilliard School (New York) on the viola da gamba, the baryton, and historical string technique.

In addition to earlier recordings from Centaur Records and Disques Erato, he is featured on the Hauschka Ensemble's recent CD of the complete music for two barytons by Joseph Haydn. A select few have heard him on American National Public Radio or Dutch television, in concert with American Virtuosi, Philharmonia Baroque Or­chestra, the Boston Camerata, and Duo Chelyum, or in solo recital.

Roland also claims to play modern viola more-or-less acceptably. His early training on that instrument in­cluded study with Gennady Kleyman, Nathan Weiner, Frances Hahn, and Armand Roth, and chamber music coaching with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld, Eric Rosenblith, and Marcus Thompson. He will also admit to having studied historical musicology for many, many years, as a partial consequence of which he currently sits on the edi­torial board of the Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. In his copious free time, he enjoys hacking Linux and composing neo-Georgian psalmody.