Biography

Alice Barron is a violinist-composer based in London, with a distinctive international career in contemporary and intercultural music.

 

Alice has performed as principal second violin for Nigel Kennedy’s Orchestra of Life in Paris and Vienna; in ‘Measure For Measure’ at Shakespeare’s Globe (onstage violin and voice); regularly with London Sinfonietta including at the BBC Proms and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; at WOMAD Australia and New Zealand with Sam Lee; with Khiyo band in Bangladesh (WOW Festival); Sam Lee's 'Singing With Nightingales'; with Rambert, Quincy Jones, Talvin Singh and L. Subramaniam. 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current interdisciplinary and intercultural composition projects include ‘S/HE’ with storyteller Vayu Naidu (Women in the Arts Festival 2022); a debut  album by duo April Twelves with Ole André Farstad (launched in Bergen 2023); music for Himali Singh Soin's 'Third Pole' exhibition in Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional and UK performances with Kathak dance, sitar and tabla (Sanju Sahai). She has an individual style that sits at the intersections of classical, folk and new musics, Alice uses improvisation as a means of composition.

 

Alice’s band, iyatraQuartet, make original music rooted in ancient melodies and folk tales and received Nigel Kennedy’s ‘Kennedy-Kolodziejski Award’ in 2019.  Their second album, Break the Dawn supported by PRS Foundation’s Open Fund, has featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music and Jazz FM and has been described as ‘absolutely beautiful’ (Cerys Matthews, 2020) and ‘stunningly performed’ (Folk Radio, 2020).

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

Alice has toured and studied extensively with Karnatic violinists in South India, including the renowned Mysore Brothers, generously supported by the Finzi Trust (2020) and SEMPRE (2017). In 2020 she completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford exploring cultural exchange and creative collaboration in her own artistic practice in India and the UK. Alice previously studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she was awarded a distinction for her Masters degree. She is a Lecturer in Music at Somerville College, University of Oxford where she has had the pleasure of leading interviews with tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and Karnatic violinist Dr Mysore Manjunath.

 

Alice is profoundly inspired by the human and artistic connections she has made through education projects in Palestine, Ghana, India and with Britten Pears Arts, Garsington Opera and the Royal Opera House. She regularly shares her love of music in workshops with Music for Autism, set up by John Lubbock OBE.

Click here for orchestral CV