Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship announces new fellow

The Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship has announced the appointment of a new fellow. For viol player Liam Byrne, the fellowship will allow him to complete a two-year project focusing on the music of the English lyra-viol repertoire from the early 17th century.

The project will see Byrne take an experimental approach to the recording and transmission of lyra-viol music, raising broader questions about aesthetics of sound in recording across the classical music sector. Byrne will present his fellowship project on 14 April as part of the Thuringia Bach Festival 2024 in Weimar.

Byrne said: ‘The fellowship offers an incredible opportunity to go beyond what is possible in an everyday professional setting. With the time and support to question all aspects of the recording process, we have the opportunity to make something truly new and hopefully capture some aspects of this esoteric repertoire that have never been heard before.’

Awarded every two years by the German city of Weimar and managed by the Thuringia Bach Festival, the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship aims to support recipients in ‘realising dreams and crossing genre boundaries’. Fellows receive €70,000 Euros annually to support their musical media projects on music of Bach and the Baroque period.

Byrne is only the third fellow in the history of the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship. When the initiative was set up in May 2020, Irish Pianist Peter Tuite became its co-creator and founding fellow, then followed by German Cellist, Tanja Tetzlaff. Her Fellowship project was the OPUS Klassik Prize-winning documentary ‘Suites for a Suffering World’, focusing on Bach's cello suites.

Weimar's deputy mayor Ralf Kirsten said: ‘Once again, the international selection panel has succeeded in selecting a creative and highly interesting musician as the new Fellow. The city of Weimar warmly welcomes the gambist Liam Byrne and is very grateful to the Philip Loubser Foundation for establishing and funding the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship.’