Alma Orr-Ewing

Alma is a viola player who has recently moved to Manchester from Birmingham. Having started out on violin, Alma fell in the love with the viola as soon as she tried one aged 12. Subsequently, she kick-started her career as a violist performing Telemann’s Viola Concerto in G major with her local orchestra. Since then, she has flourished as a chamber and orchestral musician. Alma freelances with many UK orchestras, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Welsh National Opera, and has been on trial with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played in Wigmore Hall with the Hestia Quartet and live on BBC Radio 3’s programme ‘In Tune’ with the Headrow Quartet, and she has performed Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae as a soloist with the Taunton Sinfonietta.  

Alma spent the first 14 years of her life in rural Southern Spain and is fluent in English and Spanish. Her childhood spent mainly outdoors has left her with a life-long love of nature and she looks forward to exploring the national parks in Manchester’s surrounding areas. Alma studied Maths and Music at the University of Leeds, graduating with First Class Honours having been awarded the Dean’s Prize for Mathematics. She did her postgraduate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire learning with Dr Louise Lansdown and was awarded a Master of Music with Distinction. She followed this with an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma course specialising in professional performance, learning with Adam Romer and Lucy Nolan, alongside the NEXT training programme with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. A fierce supporter of the underdog, Alma enjoys discovering new and unusual repertoire written for the viola. She has had several works written for her which included some exciting and challenging techniques such as speaking whilst playing, dancing whilst playing and using the viola as a drum.  

Alma is also passionate about music education. She considers her own experience of learning music as a child to have been a crucial part of her development and feels privileged to be able to facilitate these experiences for other people. She is course leader of the yearly residential course Magdalen Farm Strings and uses this role to inspire a love of chamber music and joy in music making. Alma has worked for Birmingham Music Service and was a volunteer viola teacher for ARCO, a charity that provides online string lessons to students who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them in Soweto (South Africa) and Chennai (India).