Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir comes from Reykjavik, Iceland. Her musical education took her to The Juilliard School in New York at the age of 18 where her most influential teachers were Paul Doktor, Felix Galimir and the members of the Juilliard String Quartet. After earning a Masters degree 5 years later she wanted to get to know the music life in Europe, so she moved to Germany and joined the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss. During her time there she studied with Nobuko Imai in Detmold and participated in many master classes, courses and festivals such the Marlboro festival in the USA, Lockenhaus in Austria and Prussia Cove in the UK.
Ásdís’ main interest as a viola player has always been playing chamber music. She moved back to the USA to be a founding member of the Miami String Quartet, but ultimately preferred to live in Europe. She moved back to Germany and became the principal viola of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, joined the Belcanto String Trio and the Mutare Ensemble and worked frequently as a guest of the Ensemble Modern and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
In 1995 she joined the Chilingirian String Quartet, based in London, with whom she travelled extensively for concerts, was in residence at the Royal College of Music, played and taught at festivals and courses around the world and made numerous radio and CD recordings. She left the Chilingirian String Quartet in 2003 in order to have more time to raise her two children and is now based in Amsterdam. She enjoys a mix of Chamber music, teaching and solo performing and is a member of the Endymion Ensemble (London) and the Erard Ensemble (Amsterdam). Recently she made two CD recordings of works for viola and piano by Weinberg, Shostakovich, Mendesohn, Hindemith and others with the Dutch pianist Marcel Worms. The CDs have the title ´The voice of the viola in times of oppression´ and were released by the Zephir Records label in the Netherlands.
Ásdís was a viola professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester for several years and is now on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. She is currently training as a teacher of Body mapping and the Alexander Technique and finding it a tremendous asset to her teaching and playing. She has been invited to perform and teach at many music festivals around the world such as the Festival Inverno at Campos De Jordao (Brazil), International Masterclass Apeldoorn (NL) and the Kuhmo Festival (Finland).