Violist William Coleman is a chamber musician, soloist, and violist of the prize-winning Berlin Kuss Quartet.
As a chamber musician he has performed at the Salzburg, Verbier, and Edinburgh Festivals, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the Elbphilharmonie, and Carnegie Hall, New York, and regularly appears in the Quartet’s series at the renowned Berlin techno club Watergate.
Chamber music partners include Isabelle Faust, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Miklós Perényi, Clemens Hagen, Mischa Maisky, Kim Kashkashian, Adrian Brendel, and Leif Ove Andsnes. Regular collaborators also include the Japanese dancer Yui Kawaguchi, Bill T. Jones, and the actors Nina Hoss and Udo Samel, as well as extensive experience working personally with the composers György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, and Harrison Birtwistle.
The Kuss Quartet’s most recent recording contains three commissions, including a work by Oscar Escudero for string quartet and a.i computer programming.
William Coleman studied in Salzburg with Thomas Riebl and later with Kim Kashkashian. He also regularly travelled to the U.S. for masterclasses and lessons with Karen Tuttle, a formative soul of the viola world.
A landmark inspiration was his first masterclass as a young student at the International Musicians’ Seminar in Prussia Cove, Cornwall. Founded by the Hungarian pedagogue Sándor Végh, it marked the beginning of many journeys to Budapest over the following decade to study with the pianist and pedagogue Ferenc Rados. He has returned to Prussia Cove every year for the last twenty-five years as a senior artist.
He is Professor of Viola at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, plays the “ex-Tertis” Carlo Antonio Testore of 1735 and is a Pirastro artist, playing exclusively on Evah Pirazzi Gold and Oliv strings.
He is married to the American violinist, pedagogue, and orchestra director Meesun Hong Coleman, and has two young daughters, Elodie and Tessa.
