Oliver Butterworth (violinist)

Oliver Butterworth, ARAM is a British violinist, music educator, and arts administrator.

Butterworth entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1965 as Sterndale Bennett Scholar and studied with Manoug Parikian. He then studied at the Prague Conservatory with Jaroslav Pekelský and Viktor Lieberman. In 1970 he also studied in Brno with Bohdan Warchal, himself a former student of František Kudláček. Butterworth has had an interest in Czech music ever since, and has recorded the complete violin works of Leoš Janáček, as well as works by František Drdla, Antonín Dvořák, Zdeněk Fibich, Jan Kubelík, Bohuslav Martinů, Oskar Nedbal, and Josef Suk. His recording of Janáček's Violin Sonata incorporates unpublished additions that the composer gave to Kudláček, who gave the first performance, and which Kudláček passed on to Warchal, who in turn passed them on to Butterworth.

After performing as a freelance violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra, Butterworth joined the English Chamber Orchestra in 1971, performing with Benjamin Britten (The Lord Britten, OM, CH), Raymond Leppard CBE, Pinchas Zukerman, and Daniel Barenboim KBE. He was appointed leader of the Dartington Ensemble and Piano Trio in 1981.