Martin Riseley

• Instrument: Violin I
• Role: Concertmaster
  The concertmaster's chair is endowed by the John & Barbara Poole Family

A native of New Zealand, Martin Riseley began violin studies at the age of six, and gave his first solo concert when he was ten. After several years of study with the English violinist Carl Pini, he entered the University of Canterbury School of Music in 1986. In 1988 he won the Television New Zealand Young Musicians Competition and Australian Guarantee Corporation Young Achievers Award. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree he went to the Juilliard School in 1989 where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and Piotr Milewski, and was coached in chamber music by Samuel Rhodes and Joel Smirnoff of the Juilliard Quartet, and by Felix Galimir. Riseley graduated from Juilliard in 1996 with his Doctorate of Musical Arts degree.

Mr. Riseley assisted Dorothy DeLay as a teaching fellow in the Pre-College Division of Juilliard while in New York, and taught at the 92nd Street 'Y'. He was also soloist and concertmaster with the Chamber Players of the Juilliard School in their Merkin Hall debut, and in Alice Tully Hall as part of the Mozart Bicentennial celebrations at Lincoln Center.

Martin Riseley has been Concertmaster of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 1994, and his solo and chamber concerts have appeared on CBC radio. He gave the North American premiere of the violin concerto "The Bulls of Bashan" by Gavin Bryars, and played the Chaconne from The Red Violin by John Corigliano at the ESO's Enbridge Symphony Under the Sky festival. He also premiered a concerto by the ESO's Composer in Residence, Allan Gilliland in 2002.

He served as Interim Associate Concertmaster of the National Arts Center Orchestra for the 2002-2003 season, and was guest concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra during 2003.