Sandy Yamamoto

Violinist Sandy Yamamoto has dazzled audiences in concert performances around the globe for the past three decades as a soloist and as a member of the Miró Quartet.

Ms. Yamamoto began her violin studies at the age of 4.  At 11, she made her solo debut with the North Carolina Symphony and has since appeared with orchestras throughout the US and Europe to critical acclaim.

For fifteen years with the Miró Quartet, she performed on the major concert stages of the world, regularly concertizing in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, performing in prestigious halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Dai-ichi Seimei Hall in Tokyo, and Carnegie Hall in New York City.

As a member of the Quartet, she was a recipient of the Naumburg Chamber Music and Cleveland Quartet Awards, won First Prize and the Pièce de Concert Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and was one of the first chamber musicians to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.  She has shared the stage with many prominent musicians including Leif Ove Andsnes, Joshua Bell, Eliot Fisk, Lynn Harrell, Midori, Jon Kimura Parker and Pinchas Zukerman.

She has conducted many classes and given lectures throughout the world.  On short notice, along with the other members of the Miró Quartet, Ms. Yamamoto stepped in for Henry Meyer and Isaac Stern at the Luzern Music Festival in Switzerland, teaching students and performing on concerts during the Festival.  Ms. Yamamoto was also invited to be a guest speaker and role model in New York City for the winners of the 2003 Glamour Magazine’s Top Ten College Women.  In 2014 at the Menuhin Competition, she led a discussion along with Artistic Director Gordon Back entitled “The Juror’s Ear”, which focused on the many critical areas upon which a competition jury member bases his or her judgment while listening to a competitor’s performance.

Ms. Yamamoto’s discography includes George Crumb’s Black Angels which won the prestigious Diapason d’or Award, “Epilogue” which includes the Mendelssohn Quartet Opus 80 and the Schubert Cello Quintet with Matt Haimovitz, the Complete Opus 18 Quartets of Beethoven, Dvorak “American” Quartet, “Credo” by Kevin Puts, Langaard String Quartet, Gunther Schuller’s Sextet, among others.

Since leaving the Quartet in May 2011, she has been appointed Associate Professor of Practice in Violin Performance at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches a studio of violin students and performs concertos and recitals regularly.  Most recently, she was the recipient of the 2016 Butler School of Music Teaching Excellence Award.  In the fall of 2011, she formed the Butler Trio with Miró Quartet cellist, Joshua Gindele and pianist, Colette Valentine.

When she is not busy teaching and performing, Ms. Yamamoto enjoys spending time with her husband, Daniel, her two sons, Adrian and Brian, and her cat, Poko.