Thomas Füri

The great Bernese violinist, Thomas Füri was born in Bern in 1947 to a musical family and took his first violin lessons from his father Erich. Despite claiming not to have practiced more than an hour a day, he progressed steadily and on his return from national service in 1967, at the age of 20 and without a conservatoire diploma, he was was booked to fill a back desk second violin spot with the Camerata Bern on an eleven-week world tour. The experience galvanised him as a musician and, on his return, he enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik Bern, where he studied with Max Rostal, before going on to postgraduate studies with Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School in New York. Concertmaster positions in Koblenz, Lausanne and Basel followed, before he joined the conductorless chamber orchestra Camerata Bern as leader/director in 1979, where he stayed until 1993 creating a substantial recording catalogue for Deutsche Grammophon and being awarded the Canton of Bern music prize for his service. From 1985 until 2000 he also played with the salon music quintet I Salonisti, with whom he made his appearance in the multi-awardwinning Titanic in 1997. He is particularly known for his recordings of violin pieces and in particular those of Fritz Kreisler, which are definitive. In 1994, he founded the Basel-based Aria Quartet, creating a concert series in the city. He was a dedicated educator, and for many years taught at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Konservatorium Winterthur as well as his permanent post in Basel. His is survived by his wife and three daughters.