Rodney Friend

Rodney Friend is an English violinist who was born in Bradford, United Kingdom, in 1939. He achieved early professional recognition at age 12 after receiving a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music and is famous for becoming the youngest concertmaster of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1964. Friend studied under Frederick Grinke and later with the musicians Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng. In 1975, he was appointed concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, where he performed and recorded with conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, and Zubin Mehta. His discography includes the recording Suite London (1972) with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Friend established the Solomon Trio in 1991 and toured extensively across Europe. He was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for his services to music and has authored the books The Orchestral Violinist (2008) and The Violin in 5ths (2019).