He is a violist who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and grew up in Scotland. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and was awarded several prizes for chamber music and viola.
Pierre Boulez invited him to join the Ensemble Contemporian in Paris in 1983 and from 1990 he was a member of the Arditti Quartet, with whom he gave several premiere performances of composers such as Xenakis, Stockhausen and Berio.
From 1998 he concentrated on his solo career and has given premieres including Violin Sonataby Henze, which was dedicated to him. He has given recitals in many major European cities and broadcasts for the German WDR.
Recently he has pioneered the viola d’amore, which has two sets of seven strings, and has been working on building a repertoire for this new instrument. His solo recordings include the acclaimed Spectral Viola and the solo recital disc of Ligeti, Kurtag, Dillon, Dusapin, Sciarrinoand Berio, which won the Deutsche Schallplaten Preis. His compositions and recordings continue to receive much acclaim.
He has been a professor of viola at the Musikene in San Sebastian and lives in Paris.
Here he is performing an Irish jig on his viola d’amore…
Sources:
- http://www.garthknox.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Knox
- http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035/biography.html
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/545177-Garth-Knox
- http://www.cmc.ie/news/2004/concorde-knox.html