Liam Byrne

Liam Byrne is a viola da gamba player whose practice connects early music, contemporary composition, improvisation and electronics. His projects range from performing with viol consorts such as Fretwork to creating sound installations for museums and collaborating with composers including David Lang, Nico Muhly and Edmund Finnis.

His close, longstanding collaboration with Valgeir Sigurðsson spans extensive touring and recording, and a shared exploration of gut strings and electronics. His performance features in Sigurðsson’s Dissonance (2017). On Donnacha Dennehy’s Tessellatum, released later that year, he performs alongside Nadia Sirota, layering viola da gamba and viola into a multitracked ensemble. His solo album Concrete (2019) gathers pieces and collaborations exploring different ways of using the instrument.

He held the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship for 2024–26, exploring the performance and recording of early seventeenth-century English lyra-viol music. In 2025, he was commissioned to create new work for the launch of the Southbank Centre’s immersive sound system, Concrete Voids.