Lars Anders Tomter, Viola

Biography

Lars Anders Tomter is one of today's most outstanding violists. The Giant of the Nordic Viola (The Strad) was born at Hamar, Norway. He began to play the violin at the age of eight and also took up the viola. Both instruments he studied with Professor Leif Jørgensen at the Oslo Music Conservatory and the Norwegian State Academy. He then continued his studies with Professor Max Rostal and with Sándor Vegh. He was awarded a special prize for his interpretation of Bartók's Viola Concerto at the International Viola Competition in Budapest in 1984 and then went on to win the Maurice Vieux International Competition in Lille in 1986.

Lars Anders Tomter has distinguished himself by performing new music extensively, including the world premiere of four concertos by Ragnar Söderlind, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Rolf Wallin and Anders Eliasson, which have all been written for Lars Anders Tomter. In 2011 he recorded Vagn Holmboe's Viola Concerto with Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra released on the dacapo label. In 2015 recorded Poul Ruders' Viola Concerto with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and in 2016 he performed Egil Hovland's Viola Concerto with the Oslo Philharmonic.

Lars Anders Tomter's appearances as an international viola soloist has been greeted with the highest public and critical acclaim throughout Europe and the United States, such as Vienna Musikverein, New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Kölner Philharmonie. He has performed with orchestras such as BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, RSO Frankfurt, NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover, Gürzenich-Orchestra Cologne, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, KBS Symphony Orchestra, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Danish National Radio Symphony. Conductors with whom he has worked together include among others Marc Albrecht, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sylvain Cambreling, Dennis Russell Davies, Olari Elts, Daniele Gatti, Manfred Honeck, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Juha Kangas, Krzysztof Penderecki, Okko Kamu, Arvid Jansons, Dmitri Kitaenko, Ken-Ishiro Kobayashi, Ervin Lukács, Nello Santi, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Ulf Schirmer, John Storgårds, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Muhai Tang and Hans Vonk. In addition, Lars Anders Tomter collaborates frequently with internationally renowned musicians in chamber music projects.

Lars Anders Tomter is a regular guest at important festivals such as BBC Proms, Lockenhaus, Kissingen Summer, Mondseetage, Schleswig-Holstein, Schwetzingen, Styriarte, Verbier as well as at a number of festivals in Scandinavia. In addition, he is artistic director of the Norwegian Fjord Classics Festival. His large repertoire includes all major contemporary works, and he has recorded for Simax, Naxos, Virgin Classics, NMC, Somm and Chandos.

Lars Anders Tomter is a Professor at the State Academy in Oslo, supervising a number of Norway's most talented string players. In 2013 he was appointed guest professor at the Royal Danish Music Academy, Copenhagen. He plays a Gasparo da Salo viola dated from 1590.

Calendar

Repertoire

Review

Poul Ruders: Viola Concerto, Handel Variations. Lars Anders Tomter, Aarhus SO

The Strad

Fri, 2018-06-01

Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is arguably the most prominent living Danish composer. His Viola Concerto, written in 1993–4, demonstrates his fine ear for timbre and textures. This tonally fascinating work begins with a single melodic line in the viola that is ‘intermittently, quietly doubled’ – as Stephen Johnson writes in his illuminating liner notes – by various instrumental groups, but their rhythms are ‘out of phase’ with those of the viola and, by and by, begin to take on a life of their own, a process that Ruders calls ‘minimorphosis’. This evolves throughout the viola’s extended introductory solo, culminating in the rich polyphonic textures of the first central tutti, all derived from the original viola line. The concerto’s sections succeed each other without a break, articulated by two extended viola cadenzas. Lars Anders Tomter is an immensely authoritative soloist who phrases Ruders’s soaring lines with consistent aplomb and a stream of solid, golden sound. The fast passages of the central scherzo-like section are ideally clear, and the final climb to a B flat in altissimo – shades of Shostakovich’s 13th Quartet? – shattering in its intensity. He is supported to the hilt by the Aarhus Symphony under their principal conductor, Marc Soustrot and faithfully recorded in the orchestra’s home base. Apparently, Ruders felt that his Viola Concerto was too long, revising and shortening it in 2013 (the version heard here); I can’t resist the heretical thought that his Handel Variations might profit from a similar pruning: 90(!) ‘symphonic reflections’ on an innocent number from the Water Music could, for all their ingenuity, prove too much of a good thing. CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

Poul Ruders' Viola Concerto

Kristeligt Dagblad

Mon, 2018-02-12

"Ruders' Viola Concedrto is a very intense work in three movemens, lasting more than 25 minutes. The music is deep in a way which makes one think of Sibelius, which of course is a great compliment. The solo part is in the impressive hands of the Norwegian violist Lars Anders Tomter, whose playins is world class. Aarhus Symphony Orchestra responds to Chief Conductor Marc Soustrot with strong and suggestive playing. Peter Dürrfeld

Discography