Henry is a Violist. Initially trained as a violinist, his grandfather made him a viola for his fifteenth birthday and he fell in love with the instrument and its repertoire. He continued to divide his time between violin and viola for a few years before eventually moving permanently to the dark side! He’s currently in his second undergraduate year at The Royal Northern College of Music where he’s fortunate to study under Susie Mészáros (Chilingirian String Quartet). He’s particularly drawn to small ensemble and orchestral work and spends most of his time participating in orchestral and chamber projects at The RNCM alongside his peers. He especially enjoys rehearsing with his Quartet. He’s always loved video game music and has performed with the Manchester Video Game Orchestra. He gets enormous pleasure from arranging this genre of music for various ensembles too.

He was recently involved in the biggest performance of Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht with over 90 performers as well as a production of The Bernstein Mass performed at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.

Before arriving at the RNCM he was involved for 12 years in the Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust, where he was principal viola of the County String Sinfonia and co-leader of the County Youth Orchestra on violin. He was also invited back to perform with the orchestra on their 2022 Germany tour alongside up-and-coming award-winning violinist Rowan Dymott. He was also a member of The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain where he performed with Jess Gillam, at Saffron Hall and at the 2021 BBC proms alongside critically acclaimed violinist Nicola Benedetti.

Lockdown in 2020 was tough on musicians so he kept busy tutoring some beginner violinists over Zoom, as well as informally supporting some of the young students from his first teacher. His role was to help keep them motivated, while safeguarding was being sorted for official county-run zoom lessons.

In his down time, Henry enjoys going to the gym where he’s become very interested in calisthenics, and the importance of core strength and flexibility for musicians. And of course, he loves to play video games, especially The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, and Ori games.