Chris Bertram

Viola

Until recently I was an IT consultant.

Since about 1985

I started out learning the violin (as so many viola players do) from the age of six.  I then read Lionel Tertis's autobiography "My Viola and I" and decided that I must try the viola, and my parents indulged me by buying an instrument (which I still have but rarely play).  This was at age 16, and I soon ceased to play the violin very much and have been a violist ever since.

When I moved to Birmingham in 1983, one of the first people I met was (now ex-) BPO trumpeter Colin Butterworth, who was my landlord's son and called to collect the rent sometimes.  He suggested that I come along when he saw that I had an instrument.  However, I didn't join at that stage.

A couple of years later, I ran into a university friend who I hadn't seen for a few years in the Country Girl pub in Selly Oak.  This friend, Mike Crump, had been my desk partner in the Oxford University Orchestra, and this time I did accept his invitation to come along to BPO, where Colin Butterworth was surprised to see me turn up.  I've been in the orchestra ever since, though Mike had to give up playing due to shoulder problems and has moved back to Wales anyway.

There are so many, but I really enjoyed playing Richard Strauss' Don Quixote with Eduardo Vassallo as the solo cellist.  I got to play the solo viola part representing Sancho Panza, and got a nice mention in the Birmingham Post review for it!

Getting to the end of a rehearsal in Lichfield Cathedral and realising that I'd left my concert clothes at home.  I dashed back to get them, but didn't make it back in time for the start of the concert, so missed the first half.

Favourites - Vaughan Williams, Bartók, Sibelius, Elgar, Beethoven.

Least favourites - Chopin, Schumann

The remaining VW symphonies that I haven't done yet, Nos 7, 8 and 9, plus Job - A Masque for Dancing.  Sibelius symphonies 4 and 6, Nielsen symphonies 4, 5 and 6.