Alan Toda Ambaras
Chair, Board of Directors (Co-founder)
Active as both a soloist and a chamber musician, cellist Alan Toda-Ambaras has performed with renowned artists such as Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Sandeep Das and other members of the Silk Road Ensemble, the Borromeo Quartet, the Parker Quartet, the Boston Trio, and he has appeared twice as a soloist with the North Carolina Symphony.
He has been featured on French television, in several European documentaries and was named the recipient of the Prize for Most Promising Contestant at the 2005 Rostropovich International Cello Competition in Paris. Alan 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.
His 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.”
Alan is passionate about engaging with communities through performances and discussions about the arts and humanities in modern society. 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.
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.
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 House, the Taos Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Harvard University's Paine Hall, and the New England Conservatory.