ABOUT

Recipient of the 2016 Butler School of Music Teaching Excellence Award, 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.

With the Miró Quartet, she performed on the major concert stages of the world, regularly concertizing in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.  As a member of the Quartet, she was a 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.  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.

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.  She also founded the Butler Trio with Miró Quartet cellist, Joshua Gindele and pianist, Colette Valentine.  She has since been enjoying a versatile performing career, playing concertos and recitals as well as leading noted chamber orchestras throughout the United States.

Ms. Yamamoto was invited as a guest speaker and role model for the winners of the 2003 Glamour Magazine’s Top Ten College Women Award in New York City.  In the past two years, she has given a lecture titled the “Juror’s Ear” for the Menuhin International Violin Competition as well as adjudicated for the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition.

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.