Rosalind Ventris

Rosalind Ventris is a leading advocate of the viola and has an international career as a soloist and chamber musician. As a recitalist, she has performed at the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Dublin International Chamber Music Festival, Purcell Room, Bozar, Flagey, Slovak Philharmonic, Aldeburgh Festival and Het Concertgebouw. As a soloist, she has worked with the European Union Chamber Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru, London Mozart Players, English Chamber Orchestra, English Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie and the Belgian National Orchestra.

SOLA, Rosalind’s debut album featuring music by leading women composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, was released by Delphian Records in January 2023. The disc was Editor’s Choice in BBC Music Magazine and on Presto Music, Instrumental Choice in BBC Music Magazine, a Guardian 'pick of the week', and appeared in 'The Best Classical Music Albums of 2023' compilations in The Sunday Times and Gramophone Magazine. SOLA was nominated for the BBC Music Magazine's 2024 Premiere Award.

Rosalind frequently performs as part of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Associate Ensemble of the Wigmore Hall), and is the violist of flute, viola and harp ensemble Trio Anima. She has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Mitsuko Uchida, Tabea Zimmermann, Llŷr Williams, the Nash Ensemble, the Arcanto Quartett, the Endellion Quartet, the Marmen Quartet, Barry Douglas, John O’Conor, Gerhard Schultz, the Sitkovetsky Trio, Hilary Hahn and the Benedetti Elschenbroich Grynyuk Trio. She has been invited to perform at many prestigious festivals internationally, including the BBC Proms, West Cork, Marlboro, Salzburg and Båstad Festivals, IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, and venues such as the Auditorium du Louvre, Paris, and the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn.

In the 2024-2025 season Rosalind appears as a soloist with the English Symphony Orchestra at Kings Place, London, collaborates with the Castalian Quartet at the Cowbridge Music Festival (recorded for future broadcast by the BBC), reunites with violist-composer Sally Beamish in a recording of Beamish’s viola duo Prelude and Canon for Delphian Records and gives the world premiere of a new duo by violinist-composer Simmy Singh alongside the composer. With the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, she will perform at venues such as the Wigmore Hall and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., broadcast live on NPO Klassiek, and record further albums for Chandos Records.

Praised for her ‘beguiling’ and ‘characterful’ playing (Gramophone), recordings featuring Rosalind as a chamber musician have received favourable reviews in the national and international press. She has recorded with ensembles for Delphian, Chandos, Signum, Tŷ Cerdd and Navona record labels, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Lyric FM, and NPO Radio 4. Rosalind enjoys contemporary music collaborations, having performed alongside composers Garth Knox and Sally Beamish. As a former founder member of the Albion Quartet she recorded Richard Blackford’s Kalon with the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum (Prague). She has also premiered several works by Edwin Roxburgh, and in 2016 Rosalind recorded a new work for clarinet, viola and piano by Rory Boyle for Delphian Records.

Rosalind is the Director of Music of the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey. She is also one of the Artistic Directors of the Cowbridge Music Festival in Wales and a Professor of Viola at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She was Director of Musical Performance and Performance Studies at the University of Oxford from 2021 to 2025.