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About
The Pacifica Quartet is a professional string quartet based in Bloomington, Indiana. Its members are: Simin Ganatra, first violin; Austin Hartman, second violin; Mark Holloway, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello. Formed in 1994 by Ganatra and Vamos with violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson and violist Kathryn Lockwood, the group won prizes in competitions such as the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2001, violist Masumi Per Rostad replaced Lockwood. The group subsequently received Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 2002, the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006, and was named "Ensemble of the Year" by Musical America in 2009. In 2017, violinist Austin Hartman replaced Bernhardsson and violist Guy Ben-Ziony replaced Rostad.
The Pacifica Quartet tours throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The ensemble is known for its traversal of the complete string cycles of a single composer, and in recent years have toured and recorded the quartets of Elliott Carter, Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Shostakovich.
Currently the ensemble serves as Quartet-in-Residence and full-time faculty at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington. The members of the Pacifica Quartet are also Resident Performing Artists at the University of Chicago and were previously the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois School of Music from 2003 to 2012.
The Pacifica Quartet was formed in 1994 in southern California. Simin Ganatra and Sibbi Bernhardsson were both students of well-known pedagogues Roland and Almita Vamos, whose son is cellist Brandon Vamos. Sibbi moved from Iceland to the Chicago area to study with the Vamoses. Two members of the Pacifica Quartet – Ganatra and Vamos - graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. The quartet's original personnel included Ganatra, Vamos, and violist Kathryn Lockwood. In 1997, Sibbi Bernhardsson collaborated with violist Masumi Per Rostad at Yale School of Music's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Rostad was subsequently invited to join the Pacifica Quartet a few years later, shortly after Lockwood's departure in 2001. At the end of the 2016–2017 season, Austin Hartman replaced Bernhardsson and Guy Ben-Ziony replaced Rostad.
Members
Simin Ganatra, violin
Austin Hartman, violin
Mark Holloway, viola
Brandon Vamos, cello
The Pacifica Quartet gained international recognition as an interpreter of string quartet cycles. They have given performances of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Elliott Carter's cycle in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Edinburgh and London; the Mendelssohn cycle in Atherton, Pittsburgh, as well as cities in Australia and Germany; and the Beethoven cycle in New York, Denver, St. Paul, Chicago, Napa, and Tokyo (in a presentation of five concerts in three days at Suntory Hall). The Quartet presented the complete cycle of fifteen quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich in Chicago and New York during the 2010–2011 season and in Montreal and at London's Wigmore Hall in the 2011–2012 season.