Andrés Díaz
Andrés Díaz was born in Santiago, Chile, and began studying the cello at the age of five. As a child his family moved to Atlanta. He graduated from the New England Conservatory, where he continues to play an active role in chamber music performances with the conservatory’s faculty.
He served for five years as associate professor of cello at the Boston University and co-director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Quartet Program. He is currently artist-in-residence at Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, and was recently appointed head of the string department at Southern Methodist University.
Mr. Díaz gave the world premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra with the Brevard Festival Orchestra. He performed the American premiere of Frank Bridge’s Oration for cello and orchestra at Boston University, and premiered Thomas Oboe Lee’s Cello Concerto (written expressly for Díaz) with the Boston Civic Symphony. He gave the Boston and Washington, D.C., premieres of Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra. Díaz later performed the piece with the National Symphony Orchestra for which it received the First Prize Friedham Award.
The Díaz/Sanders Duo, with the late pianist Samuel Sanders, performed at venues across the U.S. and abroad. The duo recorded works by de Falla and Schumann for MusicMasters and, for Dorian, released Brahms’s Sonatas for Piano and Cello, Russian Romantics (a compilation of short Russian works), and American Visions, featuring works of Barber, Bernstein and Foote. Mr. Díaz’s solo appearance on Dorian, featuring the Villas-Lobos Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and conductor Enrique Diemecke, won a 1996 Allegro Music Award for Best Orchestral Release.
His recording in memory of his collaborator, the late Samuel Sanders, features the works of Martinu, Lutoslawski, and Rachmaninoff, and won the Classical Recording Foundation 2003 Award. Andrés Díaz is very active with the Díaz String Trio, featuring violinist Andres Cardenes and violist Roberto Díaz. At Carnegie Hall the trio performed the world premiere of a string trio written for them by Guther Schuller and, at Isaac Stern’s invitation, played at Carnegie Hall’s Centennial Celebration. From 1994 to 1996 it served as trio-in-residence at the Florida International University. Mr. Díaz plays a 1698 Matteo Goffriller Cello with a bow made by his father, Manuel Díaz.
