Richard Sutcliffe

Richard Sutcliffe studied violin performance and music education at the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York before specializing in early music performance. In 1996 he moved to Belgium to study viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. After finishing two master’s diplomas he conducted research at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium examining the repertoire of the viola da gamba family of instruments between 1750 and 1850. He has performed as a soloist and ensemble musician in Europe and the United States and has taught viola da gamba in the city music schools of Brussels, Mechelen, Antwerp and Bruges, Belgium. For the past decade he has also worked as a music librarian first in the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and presently as the head librarian at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Gent. He has broadened his field of research and performing to include 19th century violin practices in Belgium and is currently finishing a PhD in musicology at the University of Huddersfield.