Elisabeth Smalt/viola

Viola player Elisabeth Smalt was born in Holland of Dutch/French Canadian parentage. She studied the viola with Nobuko Imai, Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian, Hariolf Schlichtig and others. She is active as a full-time chamber musician, performing on podia in many countries, with her work with Oxalys as centre point. Elisabeth’s favorite repertoire ranges from the early 19th century to the 21st century with emphasis on the adventurous and unknown, always acknowledging the musical context of the time. Hence also her interest in authentic performance practice, developed over the years in contact with Wim ten Have, Jed Wentz and Musica ad Rhenum, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet, and her regular duo-partner Riko Fukuda, as well as in Prussia Cove in Cornwall, a chamber music festival directed by cellist Steven Isserlis. At Prussia Cove she met throughout the years many musical representatives of the old mid-European classical music tradition like Sandor Vègh, György Kurtág, Ivry Gitlis, Ferenc Rados, and the Amadeus Quartet. Together with fortepianist Riko Fukuda she is artistic leader of the group Eruditio Musica, founded around a project that came about after Elisabeth found letters of Robert and Clara Schumann to her great-great grandfather Johannes Reinier Smalt. These letters were published in 2010 by the Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft. Elisabeth has given many premières of new solo and chamber works, mainly during her time with the Zephyr String Quartet, and at present with Trio Scordatura, in which she explores different tuning systems with the help of electronics and differently tuned violas, including the viola d’amore and the Adapted Viola, the latter used especially for the music of Harry Partch. Elisabeth can also be heard in the Prisma String Trio and the Amsterdam Bridge Ensemble. Together with the visual artist Harm Mouw she is co-director of the KlankKleurFestival in Amsterdam, which combines chamber music and visual arts in a biennial gathering over four days. Elisabeth has made a number of CD recordings, among which the most recent have been released on Fuga Libera, Mode Records, Ergodos and Brilliant Classics. She plays an early 19th century viola by Andrea Postacchini.