Assistant Professor of Cello, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Cellist, Pacifica Quartet

B.M. Eastman School of Music, M.M Yale University

Brandon Vamos has performed solo and chamber music recitals both in the U.S and abroad to critical acclaim. Called a "first rate cellist" by the Chicago Reader and praised for his "gutsy bravura" by the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Vamos has appeared as soloist with several orchestras worldwide including performances with the Taipei City Symphony, the Suwon Symphony in Seoul, the Samara Symphony in Russia, and the New Philharmonia Orchestra and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in Chicago. Mr. Vamos has collaborated with many distinguished artists including Paul Katz, Michael Tree, Yo-Yo Ma, Menachem Pressler, and the Emerson Quartet and has recorded for Cedille, Naxos, and Cacophony Records. Awarded a Performer's Certificate at the Eastman School of Music where he earned a Bachelor of Music Degree as a student of Paul Katz, Mr. Vamos has also studied with distinguished artists such as Tanya Carey in Macomb, Illinois, and Aldo Parisot at Yale University, where he earned a Master of Music Degree. He has previously served as a faculty member at Northwestern University and currently is Assistant Professor of Cello at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Guest Lecturer at the University of Chicago and Boston’s Longy School of Music.

The Pacifica Quartet has achieved international stature as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. Recent career honors include appointment as quartet-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the position held for 43 years by the Guarneri String Quartet. In 2009 the Pacifica was named Ensemble of the Year by Musical America and received the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. Other awards include the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and appointment to The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s program for gifted young musicians. In 2006 the Pacifica was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming only the second chamber music ensemble to be so honored in the Grant’s long history.

The Pacifica Quartet tours extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia and performs in the world’s major concert halls. The ensemble can be also be heard on many of the nation’s most prominent radio broadcasts, including Chicago’s WFMT, Boston’s WGBH, New York’s WNYC, and American Public Media’s Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday. Having given highly acclaimed performances of the complete Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Elliott Carter string quartets in recent seasons, the Quartet will perform the monumental Shostakovich quartet cycle in Chicago and New York during the 2010-2011 season. In 2011-2012, the Pacifica will take the Shostakovich cycle to London’s Wigmore Hall and will also present the complete Beethoven cycle at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

www.pacificaquartet.com