Robin Ireland was a student at Cambridge University and at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. He was violist with the celebrated Lindsay String Quartet between 1985 and 2005, and with the Primrose Piano Quartet from 2007 till 2015. He was Head of Chamber Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from 2014 till 2021. He now performs as a soloist and freelance chamber musician and continues to teach, coach chamber music and give master classes.

Robin has been composing since 1995, and has a created a small repertoire of works for viola and other stringed instruments, including a string quartet, and a series of Duos. He has also made arrangements for 4 violas of a number of the works for unaccompanied violin by Bach, including the three fugues and the Chaconne.

Concert Études for Viola: Many violists have grown up on a diet of violin studies transcribed for viola, and plenty have thrived on them, even… though the studies are in many cases composed with melodic patterns and fingerings that suit the violin better than the viola. My primary aim in composing this new study material was to write specifically for the viola, in ways which suit it both technically and tonally. The twelve concert études set out to be musically attractive pieces, which, in addition to addressing most basic aspects of technique, will encourage the development of ‘musical’ and expressive playing. The set of études is unusual, perhaps unique, in that it covers a range of styles, and thus provides a focus for developing an understanding of bowing and articulation appropriate to different periods of music. The first eight études move through baroque, classical and romantic styles, while the later études include material for developing confidence with metre change and other basic rhythmic skills and with atonality. The last étude introduces an improvisatory style of playing. The concert études should be appropriate for viola students from Grade 8 upwards. Details of a companion volume of ‘technical’ études and their availability can be found at www.robinireland.co.uk. These studies are each focused primarily on a single area of technical development, in many cases an area not specifically addressed in currently available study material. The new études do not set out to provide a comprehensive alternative to existing study material, but rather to complement it and extend its range.