Since winning the 1982 Isle of Man International Double Bass Competition, Duncan McTier has established a reputation as one of the world’s foremost double bass soloists and teachers. His performances in major concert halls and at festivals such as Bath and Kuhmo have inspired a host of superlatives from critics.

Duncan McTier has appeared as soloist in more than twenty countries, with many leading orchestras, including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, English and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Concertgebouw and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras with conductors Matthias Bamert, Andrew Litton, Sergiu Comissiona, Paavo Järvi and Heinrich Schiff. He has made more than fifty solo recordings for radio, television and record companies, including Philips, Denon and Collins Classics, for whom he recorded Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Strathclyde Concerto No.7. His Tarantella CD, with pianist Kathron Sturrock, was described in The Strad as containing “some of the most refined bass playing you are ever likely to hear” and voted one of Classic CD magazine’s “Choices of the Month”. Two more CDs, Capriccio and Sonata, have since been released to much critical acclaim.

Born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, Duncan McTier obtained a degree in mathematics at Bristol University before joining the BBC Symphony Orchestra. After seven years as principal bass of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, he returned to England to concentrate on a career as soloist and chamber musician. Composers who have written works especially for him include Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Robin Holloway, John Casken, John Hawkins and Gavin Bryars, whose concerto he premièred in 2002 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Duncan McTier is Professor of Double Bass at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Hochschule Musik und Theater Zürich, in Winterthur. He gives masterclasses all over the world and holds a summer course at the Academie de Musique in Sion, Switzerland. Honours awarded him include Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music and Fellowship of the Royal Northern College of Music. He is a member of the Nash Ensemble and the Fibonacci Sequence, and has collaborated with many of the world’s most distinguished string quartets and artists such as Steven Isserlis, Joshua Bell, Nobuko Imai and Artur Pizarro.