John Holloway (musician)

John Holloway (born 19 July 1948) is a British baroque violinist and conductor, currently based in Dresden, Germany. John Holloway is a pioneer of the early music movement.

Holloway was born in Neath (Wales)) and studied in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After initial engagements, including at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and at the English Chamber Orchestra, he was the manager and concertmaster of the Kent Opera Orchestra in the 1970s. After an encounter with Sigiswald Kuijken in 1972, he started playing the Baroque violin. Holloway gained a reputation as violinist, teacher and conductor in the field of historically informed performance.

In 1970 he became the concertmaster of Sir Roger Norrington's London Classical Players and later Andrew Parrott's Taverner Consort and Players. Besides playing in numerous baroque orchestras, he is a noted musicologist and lecturer.

Holloway has taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Schola Cantorum in Basel, and the Early Music Institute of Indiana University in Bloomington. He has given classes and led workshops in most European countries, as well as in Korea, New Zealand and the USA. In 2004 he was Regents’ Lecturer at UC Berkeley. In 1999 he received a teaching position at the Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" in Dresden.