A native of New Zealand, Martin Riseley studied with violinist Carl Pini and then in 1986 in Canterbury, England with Jan Tawroscewicz, with whom he performed in the Vivo String Quartet in 1987-88. He went on to study at The Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay and Piotr Milewski. In 1991 he graduated with a Master of Music degree and in 1996 with a Doctorate of Musical Arts. Martin assisted Dorothy DeLay in the Pre-College Division of Juilliard while in New York, and taught at the 92nd Street ‘Y’. He was soloist and concertmaster with the Chamber Players of the Juilliard School and guest concertmaster in 1993 of the Greenwich Symphony, Connecticut and the New York Chamber Ensemble. He has performed with most leading New Zealand orchestras as well as several in Mexico and has performed as soloist in Australia, Japan and Great Britain. In Canada he has been Concertmaster of, and frequent soloist with, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 1994. He recently gave the North American premiere of the Violin Concerto by Gavin Bryars and played the Chaconne from the “Red Violin” by John Corigliano at the ESO’s summer festival. He is the Artist-in-Residence at the Department of Music at the University of Alberta, where he collaborates with fellow faculty members Stéphane Lemelin and Tanya Prochazka. A resident performer at the 2000 Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, he has subsequently been asked back to play every year. He has been invited to perform with Pinchas Zukerman and Jon Kimura Parker in a series of chamber music performances at the National Arts Center and he was recently appointed Interim Associate Concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Later this season he performs as Guest Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.