Ingrid Matthews

Violinist Ingrid Matthews is the Music Director of Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and one of today’s most respected exponents of her instrument.

She won first prize in the prestigious Erwin Bodky International Competition for Early Music in 1989, and in 1990 joined Toronto’s Tafelmusik, with whom she performed extensively on three continents, appearing in venues such as the Proms and the Barbican Center of London, the Stuttgart Festival, the Utrecht Festival, and the Mostly Mozart Festival of New York. Matthews also worked with many other leading North American period-instrument ensembles, including Philharmonia Baroque of San Francisco, Joshua Rifkin’s Bach Ensemble of New York, and the American Bach Soloists of San Francisco, before founding the Seattle Baroque Orchestra in 1994 with harpsichordist Byron Schenkman.

In addition to her work in Seattle, she has served as concertmaster for the New York Collegium under Andrew Parrott and held the same position for the prestigious Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. Ingrid Matthews is a founding member of the chamber ensemble La Luna, with whom she has appeared on numerous early-music and university series as well as venues such as the New York Frick Collection and Woodstock Concerts. She was a frequent recitalist with harpsichordist Byron Schenkman, and has appeared as a guest director and soloist with groups throughout North America.

Among the mostrecorded baroque violinists, Matthews has won international critical acclaim for a discography which ranges from the earliest solo violin repertoire through the great Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach. Of the latter recording, the critic for American Record Guide writes "this superb recording is my top recommendation for this music… on either modern or period instruments."

Ingrid Matthews has served on the faculties of the University of Toronto, the University of Washington, Indiana University, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the International Baroque Institute at Longy and Amherst Early Music. She is a graduate of Indiana University, where she studied with Josef Gingold and Stanley Ritchie.