46TH INTERNATIONAL VIOLA CONGRESS, POZNAŃ, POLAND SEPTEMBER 24TH-28TH 2019.
The 2019 Congress theme was ‘ Between East and West’. The Congress website is: http://www.ptal.art.pl/index.php/en

45th International Viola Congress took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

November 20-24th, 2018.

The British Viola Society was very proud to be represented at the Congress by 15 viola students, 3 actors and four members of staff from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire The team was featured in the programme on three days of the Congress,  responding to the theme of 'presenting music in a new way'.

The Congress was featured in violinist .com. Read more HERE

Read a report on the Italian Viola Society website here

International Viola Congress 2018, Rotterdam - http://ivcrotterdam2018.nl

The 44th IVC took place in September 1-5, 2017 Wellington, New Zealand 

Hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Viola Society

The NZSO was booked for  September 4 to give a once-in-a-lifetime concert featuring four viola concertos (two world premieres) and Brett Dean’s Testament for 12 violas. The soloists were:

• Anna Serova (Russia-Italy) playing Pigovat’s “Poem of Dawn” and Robert Molinelli’s “Lady Walton’s Garden” (world premiere)
• Roger Myers (Austin, Texas) playing Schumann’s “Marchenbilder” (live world premiere – recently recorded with the LSO)
• Roger Benedict (Sydney, Australia) performing Walton’s Viola Concerto
• On September 5 the Attorney General, Chris Finlayson hosted a Congress Banquet Dinner at Parliament.

The 43rd International Viola Congress was held from 4-8 October 2016 in Cremona, hosted  by the Italian Viola Society. Dr Louise Lansdown, BVS President reports: The British Viola Society had the largest representation of delegates after Italy, with sixteen staff and students from Birmingham Conservatoire present. The BVS delegates focal project was a one-hour performance including Campagnoli Caprices 1-17, all performed by Birmingham Conservatoire students. The BVS members also participated in master classes with Michael Kugel, Alfonso Ghedin and Ettore Causa, as well as performing three different recital programmes in the street concerts – Stradivari School of Violin Making, Piazza del Commune and Piazza Pace. The Congress overlapped with Cremona Mondomusica, the Stradivari Festival, as well as a specialist study day surrounding the contentious and celebrated violin made by Antonio Stradavari, “The Messiah” (1716). The violin is on temporary loan to the city of Cremona from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

The 42nd International Viola Congress took place in November 26-30, 2014, hosted by Jorge Alves and the Portuguese Viola Society. The theme of the congress was “Performing for the Future of Music” . The five-day festival was packed full of activities, recitals, master classes and lectures given by musicians from all over the globe . A team of BVS Violists, made up of staff and students from Birmingham Conservatoire,  presented a concert featuring six works for viola/viola ensemble by British composers, including three works commissioned especially for the congress (by Simon Rowland-Jones, Leon Haxby and Robin Ireland). The programme was as follows

a work for Solo Viola              Sally Beamish: Ariel

a work for two violas               George Benjamin: Viola,Viola

a work for three violas            Simon Rowland Jones: Strange Shadows

a work for four violas             York Bowen: Fantasia for Four Violas

a work for five violas              Leon Haxby: Variations on a Theme by Edward Elgar

a work for six violas                 Robin Ireland: The Deviant Jig.

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Please read a full report from the BVS  HERE

The Polish Viola Society  hosted the 41st International Viola Congress 2013 at the Academy of Music Cracow, Poland  from 11–15th September, in cooperation with the International Viola Society. A report of IVC 2013 is available in the International Viola Society’s  Journal   – December 2013