Samuel Stadlen, Viola da Gamba

Sam is a viol player, cellist, lecturer, musicologist, and teacher. He performs with period music ensembles including Fretwork, Chelys, Sestina Consort, Musical Compass, and his own groups Touché(with Ibrahim Aziz) and L’Académie du Roi Soleil. Sam lectures part-time at the University of York and the Royal Academy of Music. He holds a PhD on the influences of poetry and declamation on the pièces de viole in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century France. Visit www.samstadlen.co.uk

Sam plays a cello by Thomas Kennedy (1818) and a 7-string 'Bertrand' bass viol made by Jane Julier.