LAURENCE LESSER

First Name:

Alan

Last Name:

Toda-Ambaras

City:

Boston

State:

MA

Country:

USA

First Year:

2009

Last Year:

2014

Birthday:

1/19/1991

About:

Cellist Alan Toda-Ambaras is the recipient of the Prize for Most Promising Contestant at the 2005 Rostropovich International Cello Competition in Paris. Alan is active as both a soloist and a chamber musician. He has performed with Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Sandeep Das, and other members of the Silk Road Ensemble, the Borromeo Quartet, the Parker Quartet, the Boston Trio, and has appeared twice as a soloist with the North Carolina Symphony. Recent appearances include performances in Tokyo's Ohji Hall and Zojoji Temple; Osaka's Phoenix Hall; the National Music Academy in Vietnam; the Massachusetts State Hall, the Taos Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Harvard University's Paine Hall, and the New England Conservatory, where his ensemble – The Frost Piano Quartet – made its Jordan Hall debut in May 2014. He has been featured on French television and in several European documentaries due to his participation in the Rostropovich Competition; he has also been heard on NPR's From The Top program, New York's WKCR Classical station, and Boston’s Neighborhood News Network. Alan is an avid explorer of new music, and is the dedicatee and premiere performer of Trevor Bača's "Huitzil" for solo cello and Stephanie Ann Boyd's Tekton cello concerto, amongst other pieces. He performed the latter with Boston’s Eureka Ensemble in May 2017. Alan has participated in master classes and taken lessons with many of the world’s foremost artists, including Benjamin Zander, Luis Claret, Philippe Muller, Ralph Kirshbaum, Gary Hoffman, David Geringas (at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, in Siena, Italy), Jens Peter Maintz, Frans Helmerson, Anner Bylsma (all three at the Kronberg Academy in Germany), Janos Starker, and Joel Krosnick. At Harvard, he enjoyed studying the evolving significance of human gesture and physicality in modern and postmodern painting. Alan has a B.A. in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Laurence Lesser. Alan’s performances have gained enthusiastic reviews. In Paris, he “touched the public and the jury” (musique.france2.fr). The Washington Post noted that Alan “has the poise of a seasoned performer” and “showed off his strengths convincingly in the demanding repertoire.” And another critic declared that Alan’s playing “proved remarkable by any standard. . . . Toda-Ambaras is worth seeking out and hearing.”

Current Primary Activity(ies):

Alan is passionate about engaging with communities through performances and discussions about the arts and humanities in modern society. He is the co-founder of the interdisciplinary music organization Project LENS (experiencelens.com); and co-founder, Senior Adviser, and cellist for the Eureka Ensemble (eurekaensemble.org), a new social action-oriented Boston music organization dedicated to long-term collaborations with underserved communities. During the 2018-19 season, Alan was the cellist in Midori's Music Sharing quartet program, through which they conducted cultural exchange and social service performances at assisted living centers and schools throughout Vietnam and Japan. He is also the director and primary coach for the Quad Chamber Players, a program he established during his three-year term as Music Scholar-in-Residence for Harvard's Cabot House. As a non-resident tutor in the Quad, Alan continues directing the program in collaboration with Professor Merry Peckham of the New England Conservatory.

Education:

NEC/Harvard

Degree:

MM/BA

Website:

www.eurekaensemble.org