Alan Austin, violin
Violinist Alan Austin performs regularly as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral player. He has served as concertmaster of Ars Lyrica Houston, Houston’s J.S. Bach Society (for over 20 years), Texas Bach Collegium (San Antonio), and has performed with the Texas Baroque Ensemble, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Denver, Dallas Bach Society, Mercury Baroque, Early Music Southwest, La Follia (Austin), Texas Early Music Project (Austin). He is adjunct instructor of Baroque violin at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music.
He has been a featured guest performer at Early Music Weekend at Round Top and the Amherst Early Music Festival, as well as on many recital series throughout the Southwest. He performs regularly on Austin’s St. Cecilia Music Series, including the annual Baroque Festival, held each November.
Austin has performed with such Baroque luminaries as violinists Simon Standage and Manfredo Kramer, cellists Phoebe Carrai and Jonathan Manson, oboist Geoffrey Burgess, singers Julianne Baird and Ryland Angel, and conductor Nicholas McGegan.
A founding member of Ars Lyrica Houston, he has performed with the group and artistic director Matthew Dirst in concerts ranging from solo recitals to fully staged Baroque opera productions. In 2011, the group was a Grammy Award finalist for its recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra.
He has recorded for the Dorian, Zephyr, Gothic, Sono Luminos, and MSR Classics labels, and plays on a Bernardo Calcanius violin made in Genoa, c. 1740.
In addition to performing, Alan Austin is the General and Artistic Director of the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival, a series of summer training programs centered around one of the premier Orchestral Institutes in the US.
