Katherine McGillivray

Classical viola / viola d'amore player (born 21 May, 1970 in Paisley, Scotland - died 1 August, 2006, in London). She grew up playing the violin but in her late teens discovered the viola. She was drawn to the baroque viola and viola d’amore during her studies with Catherine Mackintosh and spent a year playing with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. In 1993, she moved from Glasgow to London for a postgraduate course at the Royal Academy of Music, studying baroque and modern viola. In the following years she came to play principal viola with many groups including The King’s Consort, The Purcell Quartet, Sonnerie, the English Baroque Soloists, The Gabrieli Consort and Players, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Concerto Caledonia, of which she was a founding member with her sister Alison McGillivray. She had beeen appointed principal violist of The English Concert a month before her death.