Martin Anthony Burrage - Violin
Q. What is your instrument/ position/ job title in the Orchestra?
A. Violinist, Second Violins
Q. When did you join the Orchestra?
A. On Decimal Day - Feb 15th 1971; I was the youngest player for several years.
Q. What was your earliest musical experience?
A. Organ concert, Brighton Pavilion! (but not my 'best' experience) and later the CBSO coming to my school, a sec' mod' in Redditch, to do a concert. I went home, aged 11, to announce to my startled (and probably horrified) parents that I wanted to be a violinist; but my mum, bless her, took me seriously even though we were genuinely penniless.
Q. If you could play a different instrument, which one would it be?
A. I'm also a pianist, and I played this as a joint first study instrument with my violin at the Royal Academy of Music.
Q. What would you most like to do if you weren’t a musician?
A. Can't begin to imagine, my whole life has been as a musician. I play and teach...!
Q. What’s on your record/CD/MP3 Player/Spotify Playlist right now?
A. Any decent string / piano trio, quartet etc.
Q. What is your favourite Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra recording?
A. Elgar Violin Concerto with Hugh Bean; and the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Piano Quintet which we performed as Ensemble Liverpool / Live-A-Music in the Philharmonic Hall, as the first performance in living history - it was recommended as Choice of the Week in the Guardian and I was delighted to have discovered and realised the score into playable parts (see www.martinanthonyburrage.com )
Q. What is your most memorable moment with the Orchestra so far?
A. In the later 1980s / early 90s, when we in HOPES saved the Phil from being closed, with the slogan 'Once lost, we will not get it back!' and Chris Smith MP came to Liverpool to support us.
Q. What do you like to do with your free time outside music?
A. Visit my beautiful baby granddaughter in London
