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. With the Quartet, she performed on major concert stages worldwide, regularly touring in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. She was the recipient of the Naumburg Chamber Music and Cleveland Quartet Awards, won first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, and was one of the first chamber musicians to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Currently, she is Professor of Practice in Violin Performance at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin and was the recipient of the 2016 BSOM Teaching Excellence Award. Since leaving the Miró Quartet in 2011, she has enjoyed a versatile performing career—playing concertos and recitals, leading noted chamber orchestras, and collaborating with various chamber musicians. She is the Artistic Director of the Austin Chamber Music Center. This past season, she was invited by Jeffrey Kahane to be Co-Concertmaster of the San Antonio Philharmonic and will continue in this position this coming year. Her discography ranges from the complete Opus 18 quartets of Beethoven to George Crumb’s Black Angels, and her recordings have won the prestigious Diapason d’Or and the CRF Award. She was also featured in Isaac Stern’s final documentary, Life’s Virtuoso.