Jim Hutton
RLPO violinist celebrates forty years with the orchestra
Congratulations to Jim Hutton who is celebrating an incredible milestone today - forty years with the orchestra!
Jim's connection to the orchestra goes back many years beginning when his uncle used to watch the wartime ENSA concert series given by the Orchestra in Sheffield City Hall. His uncle later went out one day to buy a shirt and came back with a violin, which subsequently became Jim's first violin.
A young Jim Hutton with his violin
After starting lessons in secondary school, a music teacher recognised Jim's potential and brought in a violin teacher for him from the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra. He went on to study violin with Herbert Whone who became a life-long teacher and mentor. After studying at Goldsmith's National Centre for Orchestral studies he began his professional career with Max Jaffa in Scarborough.
Jim Hutton in Scarborough
In late 1980 Jim secured his position with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and began playing in the second violin section on 19 January 1981. During his forty years with the orchestra, he has had the privilege of playing for and with some of the world's greatest musicians. Highlights include the many tours abroad, playing in the Three Choirs Festival, playing in the Berlin Philharmonie and the Musikverein in Vienna, recording the Vaughan Williams symphonies with Vernon Handley and playing in The Prague Spring Festival with Libor Pesek.
An amusing memory with the orchestra was during a BBC prom concert in the late 1990s when Jim discovered that he had left his concert trousers behind in Liverpool and had to resort to borrowing the security guard's trousers. (They were navy blue and the guard was over six feet tall - luckily it was a radio and not a TV broadcast!)
Jim Hutton at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Despite all of his achievements, some of his proudest moments have been seeing both his daughters secure places in the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company and playing alongside them on stage in the Philharmonic Hall. Jim is grateful to everyone who has been a part of his journey over the last forty years.
Posted 19 January 2021 by Rachel Gaston
