Emlyn Stam

Treasurer (Holland/ Canada)

I’m a violist involved with a wide range of interests and activities in my professional life. I am a researcher and pedagogue focusing on early recordings. I find experimenting with the historical playing styles we hear on these recording in our practice today to be inspiring. This opens a lot of doors for communicating the music we play with our listeners—there is a lot of lost knowledge on old records. 

I’m an active performer of new music and involved in transdisciplinary productions as artistic director of the New European Ensemble. Some wonderful composers of our time have written concertos and solo works for me. In addition to performing, I love teaching the viola and feel that I often learn as much or more from my students than they learn from me.

Since 2022, I have been Treasurer of the International Viola Society. Prior to this appointment, I was Treasurer and a board member of the Dutch Viola Society as well as part of the organizing team for the Rotterdam Congress in 2018. 

My goal for the IVS is to see us expand the number of countries with viola societies to increase our reach and grow our community in the future.  

If you are interested, you can read my dissertation here: https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/79999

and listen to the recordings here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcDVVGgA9DhfuKKV2zk64sci2FlDEXVBK