About David
Dr David Milsom, BMus (Hons), MMus, PhD, FHEA (b. 1974) is a scholar-performer, instrumental teacher, violinist, violist, conductor, liturgical singer, and university lecturer, from and based in Sheffield, UK.
David’s current work encompasses a wide range of performing as a freelance period instrument and modern instrument violinist/violist, instrumental teacher (with a specialization in advanced learners and gifted pre-H.E. instrumentalists), and scholar with particular interest and expertise in ‘romantic’ performing practices, and historical recordings. A recent avenue has been to develop project-based ways of going beyond traditional ‘violin lessons’ with his more gifted private students, with a strong desire to train and educate holistically for the challenging and changing environment of current and future western art-music practice. This inspired the formation of the West Riding Ensemble joining together David’s preoccupations with pedagogy and string chamber music.
In 2023, David was invited to take up the role of External Examiner for post-graduate taught courses at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (a tenure he holds until 2026), as well as upper strings external specialist examiner for Leeds Conservatoire (on-going). He also became a founder member of the Early Recordings Association (ERA), recognising his expertise in studying (and, since 2020, making) historical (and particularly acoustic) sound recordings. David has published and recorded widely, and takes a Polymath approach to being a musician.
David’s musical philosophy revolves around harnessing the fruits of scholarly research to impact performance, in a wide range of ways. ‘Academic research into music performance might seem superfluous to many practitioners, and it is certainly true that performance based on ‘research’ is not necessarily better,’ David reasons. ‘This said, we live at a time when performers must develop their individual voices, as well as a time that is chronologically often greatly separated from much of the music that we play. But scholarly knowledge can be put at the service of musical performance and can help refresh, reinvigorate, and provide a solid basis for performance decisions. It has ever been my desire to encourage knowledge and understanding as much as ‘skills’ in order to provide more tools to enhance our performances, and thereby to attract - and keep - audiences on whom we all rely’. In particular David holds that a ‘bel canto’ approach to string playing is axiomatic to an understanding of all pre-twentieth-century music, and much thereafter.
David’s philosophy is also pragmatic and practical: he espouses the virtues of a ‘portfolio’ approach to being a versatile musician, and his mentoring work seeks to provide a down-to-earth context to nurture new talent. For David, playing, teaching, and scholarly activity are inter-twined and inter-dependent.
Beginning his violin studies in 1979 with Pamela Price, David numbers Peter Cropper, Roger Bigley, Roger Coull, Martin Milner, and Heather Wallington as his formative teachers: the mix of violinists and violists here attests to his versatility between violin and viola and his love for both instruments. In 1986, he joined a select few (including such luminaries as Marie Hall!) in being awarded an ABRSM Gold Medal, performing his first major violin concerto (Mendelssohn) in 1988.
From Peter Cropper and Roger Bigley, David gained a life-long obsession with chamber music, and was described by former Lindsay Quartet ‘cellist Bernard Gregor-Smith as a ‘born chamber music player.’ From Martin Milner, who led the Halle Orchestra for 28 years (including its time under the direction of Sir John Barbirolli), David gained an instinctive leadership style, and, although Milner was a Lancastrian, his down-to-earth and practical approach to the daily business of being a musician (to say little of the teaching of technique and style) fitted naturally with David’s proud and partisan Yorkshire heritage! At university, David was mentored by many, but most notably Anthony Bennett, Alan Brown, and Peter Hill, whilst Clive Brown kindled a proselytizing zeal to advocate for romantic performing practices. Indeed, although posthumously and via incomplete surviving evidence, David’s most profound influence was the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim (1831 - 1907) whose motto, ‘Frei aber einsam’ (free but lonesome) aptly encapsulates David’s independent tendencies!
After a brief dalliance with the prospect of undertaking work outside music, David began at the University of Sheffield in 1992 reading modern history, switching to the BMus in 1993, from which he gained a solid, versatile, and relevant musical grounding. Owing to the influence of Colin Lawson, he embarked upon a research MMus in 1995, resulting in a PhD in 2000 studying nineteenth-century performing practices under Clive Brown. David was maintained throughout his postgraduate studies by coveted British Academy funding. In 1996 he married Ruth, a pianist, organist, instrumental teacher, and desktop music publisher. Ruth has acted as copy editor, proof-reader, IT assistant and many other things, as well as a Partner in their teaching business, Milsom School of Music.
Around the new millennium, David was a busy freelance player, teacher and visiting academic lecturer. David gained a prestigious AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts in 2006, working at the University of Leeds with Clive Brown. In 2010, he took up the post of Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, where he has remained since. David has been part-time since 2020 working for between three and four days per week until 2024. From September 2024, owing to the avowed financial pressures at the university in conjunction with his desire to concentrate more upon his practical music-making, David stepped back to 2 days per week, allowing him time to develop his private teaching practice, be available for freelance playing, and to help run, devise and direct The West Riding Ensemble. David now divides his time between University of Huddersfield, The West Riding Ensemble, freelance playing on both modern and period instruments, a day of peri teaching at Hill House School, Doncaster (since 2020), and his private practice as Partner in Milsom School of Music. Regular freelance playing includes as leader of The Brigantes Orchestra (from its inception in 2019), Skipton Camerata, Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, and Baroque in the North. For over a decade, David played in baroque chamber group Four’s Company, and has long-term loan of founding colleague Duncan Druce’s baroque violin. He also founded nineteenth-century specialist performance chamber group The Meiningen Ensemble around the same time, but is activities (with pianist Jonathan Gooing and cellist George Kennaway) have now been subsumed within The West Riding Ensemble which, in its varied, simultaneous and project-by-project repertoire and performing practice aims, now better reflects David’s evolving viewpoints on historical performance ontologies. Since the formation of The West Riding Ensemble in 2024, David undertakes much chamber music playing and recording with his new group, which acts as a hub bringing together a whole range of modern instrument and period instrument performances, pedagogy and training, and work with close colleagues and friends across several generations. David reflects, ‘There is nothing like music to bring together people of diverse ages and experiences with the common goal of working together to promote, communicate, and serve great music.’
The West Riding Ensemble (WRE), from an academic perspective, provides a synthesis ‘throughput’ of David’s long-standing performance scholarship into this ‘collective of today’s and tomorrow’s professional musicians’. Those familiar with David’s scholarship might be surprised by his enthusiasm for the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (David wrote his undergraduate dissertation on the 8th quartet); this is a shared enthrallment within WRE and has seen a resurgence in David’s performance of music by this composer.
David is also a founder member of liturgical choir, Sheffield Chamber Choir, and a member of the choir of St John’s Church, Ranmoor, Sheffield (which has a vibrant cathedral style and standard music department).
David has few specific interests outside music, nor does he have the time, although he has a love for the beauty and rugged landscapes of his native Yorkshire. As Sergei Rachmaninov reputedly remarked, ‘Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.’
His academic biography and profile at Huddersfield can be found here: David Milsom — University of Huddersfield Research Portal
David is a member of the Royal Musical Association, Early Recordings Association, Incorporated Society of Musicians, Musicians’ Union (MU), and the University and College Union (UCU). David is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority.
David’s instruments include a viola (2013) and a violin (2016) by Sheffield luthier, John Cockburn, as well as a violin by Solar Gonzalez (1976), currently set up with nineteenth-century specification gut strings. He is honoured to have long-term loan of a 1994 West Dean baroque violin, formerly of polymath and historical performance pioneer, Duncan Druce. David has a collection of excellent bows, including a 1992 silver-mounted Benoit Rolland violin bow, and a silver-mounted viola bow by Chris Halstead, amongst others.