Kiwi violist, chamber musician & teacher.
(That’s Bryony in a nutshell. Longer version to the right. Even longer version below!)
New Zealand born Bryony Gibson-Cornish is a keen biker, yogi and violist. Various accolades include being awarded the Tagore Gold Medal upon graduating from the Royal College of Music and studying at The Juilliard School as a Fulbright Scholar. She is the violist of the Marmen Quartet, winners of the Banff and Bordeaux International String Quartet Competitions. They regularly tour throughout Europe and are the Peak Fellowship Ensemble in Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Bryony has been teaching chamber music and assisting her former professor, Andriy Viytovych, at the Royal College of Music since 2017 and is delighted to be joining the distinguished String Faculty from 2022 as a Viola Professor. She is grateful for numerous grants and scholarships, including the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Pettman Foundation and the Kathleen Trust. She plays a 1932 Vincenzo Sannino Viola, Rome, Italy, and is grateful to the Loan Fund for Musical Instruments for their support.
The back story…
As a teenager, Bryony pursued studies both in viola and opera, completing studies at the Pettman National Junior Academy of Music and the University of Canterbury with Stephen Larsen and Dame Malvina Major. She was accepted into the Master of Music degree programme at The Juilliard School at 19 years old as a Fulbright Scholar, where she studied viola with Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. During this time, she also studied historical performance and composition alongside viola. Many scholarships made her studies possible, a full list can be found here. In 2015, Bryony moved to London to pursue an Artist Diploma in viola at the Royal College of Music, studying with Andriy Viytovych. Upon graduating, she was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal, awarded by HRH the Prince of Wales to graduating students judged to have made outstanding contributions musically and in other important ways to the life of the Royal College of Music. Bryony stayed on at the RCM, completing another Artist Diploma in chamber music with the Marmen Quartet, as well as assisting her former professor, Andriy Viytovych, with teaching his viola class and teaching chamber music from 2017 onwards. She is thrilled to be joining the distinguished international String Faculty as a Viola Professor from 2022 at the Royal College of Music.
Marmen Quartet
Bryony joined the Marmen Quartet in 2017, a group known for their courage, vitality and commitment of its performances, founded in 2013 at the Royal College of Music. 2019 was a significant year of achievement for the quartet, with First Prizes at both the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition and Banff International String Quartet Competition, where they were also awarded the Haydn and Canadian Commission prizes. They also won first prize at the Royal Over-Seas League Competition (2018) and awards at the International Joseph Joachim Competition. The Marmen Quartet has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Boulez Saal and Stockholm Konserthuset as well as extensive European tours including performances in Frankfurt, Hannover, Heidelberg and Leipzig. Festival engagements have taken the quartet to the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, BBC Proms, Gulbenkian Quartet Biennale and the Barcelona Quartet Biennale at the invitation of Cuarteto Casals. They are Quartet-in-Residence with O/Modernt, where one of their festival appearances were praised by Camilla Lundberg of the Dagens Nyheter as “the best performance I have heard of a Haydn quartet!” The Marmen Quartet are also the Peak Fellowship Ensemble in Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where they work closely with the students, as well as giving performances and developing new quartet based projects during their visits. Their mentors include Simon Rowland-Jones, John Myerscough (Doric Quartet) and Jonathan Brown (Cuarteto Casals).
Orchestras and ensembles
Bryony is also much in demand as an orchestral musician and held the position of No. 2 Viola with London Mozart Players from 2019-2023, where she regularly sat principal and served on the Board of Directors. She freelances with various chamber orchestras including O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and English Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed as guest principal with Manchester Camerata, English National Opera and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
New Zealand
Since moving overseas in 2012, Bryony has kept a close connection with home, returning for residencies and workshops at her alma mater, Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, as well as performing and teaching at the Akaroa International Music Festival. Bryony toured for Chamber Music New Zealand in 2015, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the NZCT Secondary Schools Chamber Music Contest with a nationwide tour collaborating with contest alumni. She recorded Philip Norman’s “When Gravity Fails” with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2017 NZ Composer Sessions in collaboration with SOUNZ and Radio NZ. Bryony performed the same work in 2014 with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra as their Young Soloist of the Year. She has also worked closely with award-winning composer Salina Fisher. Bryony won the Pultron Composites Award for the best performance of a New Zealand work at the 2015 Gisborne International Music Competition with her performance of “Reflect”, a work for solo viola that Salina dedicated to Bryony. More recently, Salina wrote “Heal” for the Marmen Quartet, a work that they have performed all over Europe, made possible through a commission by the Chamber Music New Zealand Trust in memory of Ian Lyons, with support from the Lyons Family.