Stephen Upshaw discusses his new EP Veneer and performing at Glastonbury Festival
Stephen Upshaw’s musical journey began with the alto clef. “I have a slightly unusual story of how music came into my life,” he explains. “I started the viola at the age of 10, having never played any instruments before – definitely not the violin! I only ever played the viola and I began learning it as part of my school music programme. For some reason, I knew I wanted to play a string instrument. I couldn’t tell you why. I was just instantly drawn to it. It’s interesting because I remember taking general music classes when I was younger and trying to play the recorder, but I didn’t engage with it at all. It didn’t click – and yet, making music on the viola completely fascinated me. I couldn’t get enough. So I went on to study the viola at undergraduate and postgraduate level and have been loving it ever since.”
Stephen first joined Trinity Laban in 2015 as a Carne Junior Fellow, before becoming a professor of viola in 2022. “I’ve loved getting to know the students,” he says. “They’re always very open minded and receptive to new, unusual ideas. Trinity Laban students are both adventurous and musically excellent. Their curiosity and openness is a joy to engage with.”
A highly sought-after teacher, Stephen also serves on the faculty of Switzerland’s prestigious Lucerne Festival Academy, where he co-curates the annual Festival Forward. Composer Pierre Boulez founded the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2004 as the world’s unique training ground for contemporary orchestral music. “It’s very hard to put on some of these large contemporary music compositions because they require very specific instrumentation or setup or technical requirements. These are usually prohibitive for normal concerts, so it’s a really unusual opportunity,” he explains. “That alone is very exciting – to be able to witness the performance of these works and coach these academists in their interpretation of them. It’s also really fun to meet emerging violists and get to know their stories while helping them and offering advice. It’s very rewarding and Lucerne is a picturesque place to be – the perfect location to meet colleagues and follow the rhythm of new music.”
Stephen regularly appears in world-renowned festivals, including the BBC Proms where he performed as Guest Principal in August 2025 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. “We performed Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which is one of my favourite pieces of all time. I haven’t played it for many years, so it was very exciting to revisit it in this context with wonderful colleagues I hadn’t had the chance to work with before.” On an entirely different note, Stephen has also performed at Glastonbury Festival, collaborating with Max Richter and Tilda Swinton. “It was great to perform as part of a small ensemble – it was the five of us with Max and Tilda. It was amazing to see so many people showing up to hear instrumental music at 11:00 AM in this festival environment. It gave me a lot of hope. The event conjured a really special atmosphere which I won’t forget,” he says.
Stephen is a member of the award-winning Solem Quartet, praised for their “immaculate precision and spirit” (The Strad) and recognised as one of the most innovative, adventurous quartets of its generation. He is also a member of London’s Riot Ensemble, cited as “the supergroup of top soloists playing new music” (Guardian) and an active chamber musician, having shared the stage with artists such as Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Tai Murray. Recent engagements have taken him to the Paris Philharmonie, London’s Barbican, and Tokyo Opera City.
As a noted interpreter of contemporary music, Stephen has a number of recordings to his name, including his new EP Veneer released on 12 September 2025. “It’s a collection of works, most of which were written for me with the exception of the lead single,” he says. “It’s a real exploration of the different sounds that the viola can make. All the pieces are contemporary, reflecting the diversity of what the viola is capable of in terms of stylistic output and showcasing the different compositional voices of today. The EP is a sampling of different musical styles within the contemporary genre.”
Lavinia by Errollyn Wallen, had its genesis in her opera Dido’s Ghost, performed by Trinity Laban opera students in 2024. “What I love about the piece is the opportunity it presents to take a more dramatic and operatic role as a solo viola player,” says Stephen. “The piece was inspired by Errollyn’s opera and she decided to focus on one of the characters, Lavinia, the princess of the Latins and the last wife of Aeneas. She effectively distilled Lavinia’s emotions – rage, jealousy, betrayal – into this character study for viola which is really fun to delve into.
“Errollyn directly quotes one of the arias from Lavinia’s appearance in the opera, so it’s been so interesting to introduce that vocal element into string performance. The only time I’ve ever heard Dido’s Ghost was in its performance at Trinity Laban. It was a lovely full-circle moment to finally see it in its staged version and hear the origin of the musical ideas. The premiere of Lavinia was in Wigmore Hall and it’s always a wonderful place to perform in, but this concert was meaningful for a number of reasons. It was around the time that we could just have audiences back in concert halls and it was such a relief to have people in the seats to play to. I did a couple of live broadcasts from Wigmore Hall during lockdown and although it was great to still share music with people, it was very strange to play to an empty hall and just a camera. It felt settling to have a lovely, warm audience receiving music for the first time.”
You can stream Stephen’s EP Veneer on Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming platforms.
Image Credit: Matthew Johnson