Irvine Arditti

Irvine Arditti
Irvine Arditti, in a concert held at the São Paulo Museum of Art in 2011.
Background information
Born	1953 (age 63–64) London, United Kingdom
Genres	Classical
Occupation(s)	Violinist
Instruments	Violin
Years active	1974–present
Associated acts	London Symphony Orchestra, Arditti Quartet

Irvine Arditti (born 1953) is a British violinist, as well as the leader and founder of the Arditti Quartet.

Arditti attended the Central Foundation Boys' School in London before continuing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 where he studied with Clarence Myerscough and Manoug Parikian. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master. He left the orchestra in 1980 in order to devote more time to the Arditti Quartet which he had formed while still a student.

In 1988 he was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his distinguished work. The Arditti Quartet was awarded the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1999 for 'lifetime achievement' in music.

Arditti has been responsible for having given the world premières of a number of large scale works specially written for him. These include Iannis Xenakis' Dox Orkh and Toshio Hosokawa's Landscape III, both for violin and orchestra, as well as Brian Ferneyhough's Terrain, Luca Francesconi's Riti Neurali and Body Electric, James Dillon's Vernal Showers, Jonathan Harvey's Scena, Brice Pauset's Vita Nova, Roger Reynolds Aspiration and Salvatore Sciarrino's Le Stagioni Artificiali all for violin and ensemble.

He has also been responsible for the creation of many solo works including both of Ferneyhough's solo violin works, Intermedio and Unsichtbare Farben. He was also responsible for inspiring John Cage to complete his Freeman Etudes giving the first complete performance of them in 1991.