Galway-based violin master with more than one string to his bow

Date Published: {J}

Paul Ezergailis’s long journey from Australia to Moycullen was one that led him to Switzerland, Norway and England en route to the West of Ireland. Even today, although he’s well settled in the rapidly growing village 10 miles from Galway, he is gone from home for six months of any given year.

Paul is a world-class classical violin player, a co-leader of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and a member of the renowned Academy of St Martin in the Fields Orchestra in London. It’s a life that involves extensive travelling and touring.

It’s rare for a classical musician of this calibre to live in Ireland while working elsewhere, but Paul is married to a Galway woman and when their two sons were born in the 1990s, they decided to make Galway their home.

Their decision to relocate here from Oslo is one which has brought many benefits to young musicians in Galway as Paul has become actively involved in the Galway Youth Orchestra, serving as conductor of the group’s Senior orchestra in conjunction with Michael Dooley.

But had he not met his wife Philomena when he was a student at Lucerne in Switzerland, it’s unlikely that Galway’s young musicians would be benefiting from his talent and dedication today.

Paul was born in Australia, one of six sons to Latvian parents who emigrated there shortly after the Second World War.

Music was part of his childhood, with his mother playing piano and his father violin. Both were extremely talented, he says, but their hopes of professional careers ended when they had to emigrate to Australia.

They were determined that their sons would play and Paul started piano at six, quickly moving to violin. The Ezergailis parents also dreamed of having their sons play as a group and that’s what happened, with Paul and two of his brothers forming a trio.

“So chamber music was in the house all the time,” he recalls.

Until Paul left Australia at the age of 19, the band of brothers featured regularly on national Australian radio and television.

“Although there were a lot of emigrants to Australia with musical backgrounds, it was still unusual to have three brothers playing together,” he explains.

At 19 he moved to Europe, to the Lucerne Conservatorium of Music and joined a concert diploma class taught by renowned Swiss violinist and conductor Rudolf Baumgartne, co-founder of Lucerne Festival Strings and one-time director of the Lucerne Festival.

In addition to academic work, the course required that they tour and record constantly. He also worked with other Swiss orchestras when he lived there.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.