Ben Mathot

Ben Mathot is a Dutch violinist and recurrent collaborator of Ayreon, present on several albums of Arjen Lucassen's project. His function points to a trait that sets Ayreon apart from almost all progressive metal: the orchestral elements are not simulated by keyboard. Where other bands use synthesizers to imitate strings, Lucassen calls in real players, and Mathot's violin appears as a voice of its own within the arrangements — in folk passages, in sections of tension and in stretches that come close to chamber music. That choice has a concrete sonic consequence. A violin played by a musician brings variation of attack, breath and intonation that no programmed instrument reproduces, and that is what gives Ayreon's records an organic texture unusual in a science fiction repertoire. He also works on recordings by other groups of European symphonic metal and in contexts outside the genre.