Lars Anders Tomter
is one of today’s leading violists, described in The Strad as “the giant of the Nordic viola”. A now 25-year-long career counts appearances worldwide at the Vienna Musikverein, Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London and Konzerthaus Berlin. He has performed with among others the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the major Scandinavian orchestras. Lars Anders Tomter’s repertoire embraces all major works for viola as well as new works written for him. He has premiered concertos by composers like Rolf Wallin and Erkki-Sven Tüür. Lars Anders Tomter is a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and a visiting professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music as well as Joint Artistic Director of the famous Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway. Lars Anders Tomter has recorded for labels like Simax, Naxos, Virgin Classics, NMC and Chandos.

The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra
was founded in 1935. The orchestra’s repertoire ranges wide, from Baroque music to the very latest composition music. This amounts to some 30 concerts a year, as well as about 15 opera performances, 80 school concerts, chamber concerts and CD recordings. In 1992 the orchestra began recording Vagn Holmboe’s 13 symphonies with the Welsh conductor Owain Arwel Hughes. The most stimulating challenges for the orchestra have included the productions of Wagner operas begun by the Danish National Opera in Aarhus in 1983 with the staging of The Ring of the Nibelung; later this was followed by Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal. The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra has toured in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Greece and has played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. Worth singling out among the orchestra’s earlier principal conductors are Ole Schmidt ( 1978- 85), Norman Del Mar (1985-88), James Loughran (1996-2003) and the Italian conductor Giancarlo Andretta (2003-2012).