Ashan Pillai
Ashan Pillai (born 1969 in Colombo, Sri Lanka) is a British violist. He was educated as a music and academic scholar at Merchant Taylors School, London and then at the Royal Academy of Music, London, the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and the Juilliard School, New York City. His principal teachers were John White, Donald McInnes and Karen Tuttle.Between 1994 and 1998 he won several prizes at international and national competitions including the Tertis and Rome International Competitions, the Royal Overseas League and Park Lane Group Competitions in London and Artists International in New York. These successes led to acclaimed debuts in London's Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room (1997–1999), New York's Carnegie Hall and festivals throughout the world including Salzburg, Tanglewood, Banff, Ravinia, Aspen, Casals (Puerto Rico, France and Barcelona), and Schleswig-Holstein.Pillai has performed as soloist under the batons of Christian Zacharias,Eiji Oue, Andrew Parrot, Christopher Hogwood, Robert King, Lawrence Foster, with the English, Gulbenkian, Czech, Andorran and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, as well as I Musici, London and New York,several Spanish orchestras and collaborated with the likes of Lynn Harrell, Zacarias, the Kreutzer and Brodsky Quartets, and the Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt.He was assistant principal violist in the English Chamber Orchestra (1995–2000), co-founding member of the Mobius Ensemble (London 1997–2006) and is currently principal viola in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (from 2000), violist with the Zukerman Chamber Players, the string quintet led by Pinchas Zukerman. Pillai is Professor of Viola at ESMUC (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya) (from 2001) and the Conservatori Superior del Liceu in Barcelona (from 2009)In 2014 he was appointed professor in Musica en Compostela, the prestigious summer festival which especializes in Spanish music.As a recording artist, Pillai has recorded widely for EMI, Naxos, ASV, Altara,Verso, Meridian, Bel, Columna and Oehms Classics including sonatas by Bax, Debussy, Lluís Benejam, and Schubert, Gerhard, and concerti by Hoffmeister and Mozart.