Matthew Spring

Matthew Spring completed a Foundation course at Sarah Lawrence College, New York. At Keele University, England he gained a first-class degree in History and Music, and a DPhil at Oxford. He went on to study lute at the Royal College of Music and taught himself the hurdy-gurdy. He has performed and recorded in North and South America, Europe and China with many groups (Sirinu, Bath Baroque, Elizabethan Consort, Blackdowns Early Music Project, Chalemie, Galliarda). He gave the first continental performance of Howard Skempton’s Concerto for Hurdy-gurdy and Percussion at the Musica Viva Festival, Munich and in Dusseldorf and the first modern performance of Haydn’s C major hurdy-gurdy concerto at Snape Maltings. His publications include a History of the Lute in Britain (OUP), The Music of Henry VIII (CUP) and the Balcarres Folk Manuscript (GUP). He was awarded Leverhulme Research Funding (1992), Radcliffe Fellowship Funding (1996), AHRC Funding (2006) and supported by the National Foundation for Youth Music (2006).