Turkish cellist Efe
Baltacigil has been awarded a 2006 Avery Fisher Career
Grant. He has also been selected as a member of the
European Concert Hall Association’s (ECHO) Rising
Stars program and will tour Europe in the 2006-2007 and
2007-2008 seasons, including concerts at the Barbican in
London, Vienna Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw,
Brussels Palaix des Beaux Arts, Athens Concert Hall,
Stockholm Konzerthuset, and Carnegie Hall in New York.
Also in 2006-2007, Mr. Baltacigil makes his Carnegie Hall
concerto debut, performing Tchakovsky’s Rococo
Variations with the New York Youth Symphony, and appears
at Carnegie’s Weill Hall. He gives recitals at Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Philadelphia Arts Alliance,
and the Arts Council of Moore County (NC), and performs
as soloist with the Altoona and Reading Symphony
Orchestras in Pennsylvania. Mr. Baltacigil is a member of
Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two.
Mr. Baltacigil has performed the Brahms Sextet with
Pinchas Zukerman and Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall, and
participated in Mr. Ma’s Silk Road Project. He has
toured with “Musicians from Marlboro” and
appeared in Richard Goode’s Perspectives Series at
Carnegie Hall.
In February 2005, Mr. Baltacigil came to the attention of
the musical world when he and pianist Emanuel Ax
performed a Beethoven Cello Sonata at a Philadelphia
Orchestra concert with only 10 minutes of rehearsal. Mr.
Baltacigil, the Orchestra’s Associate Principal
Cellist, and Mr. Ax, the evening’s soloist, were
called upon when a winter snowstorm prevented most of the
Orchestra from reaching the concert hall. After that
performance, The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote,
“Baltacigil is a highly individualized solo artist.
His gorgeous sound, strong personality, and expressive
depth suggest an artist about to have a major
career.”
A winner of the 2005 Young Concert Artists International
Auditions, Mr. Baltacigil made his New York debut in the
Young Concert Artists Series at Carnegie’s Zankel
Hall, sponsored by The Peter Jay Sharp Prize, and his
Washington, DC debut in the Young Concert Artists Series
at the Kennedy Center, sponsored by the Washington
Performing Arts Society Prize.
Mr. Baltacigil was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He started
studying the violin at the age of five and changed to the
cello at the age of seven. He received his
Bachelor’s degree from Mimar Sinan University
Conservatory in Istanbul in 1998 and an Artist Diploma
from The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in
2002, where he studied with Peter Wiley and David Soyer.
He was recipient of The Curtis Institute’s
Jacqueline DuPre Scholarship. |
