AARON BOYD

Violinist Aaron Boyd has established a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, recording artist, lecturer and teacher. Since making his New York recital debut in 1998, Boyd has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and Asia and has collaborated with members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Orion, Tokyo and Emerson Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio, Phillippe Entremont, Mitsuko Uchida, Anner Bylsma, Lynn Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, and David Finckel. As a violinist of the Escher String Quartet, Boyd appears at prestigious venues throughout the world and is an artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As a concertmaster, Boyd has led numerous ensembles, including the Kansas City and Tucson Symphonies. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Martin E. Segal prize from Lincoln Center, Boyd has also been a prizewinner in numerous competitions including the Ecoles D’art Americaines de Fontainebleau, the Klein Violin Competition, the Tuesday Musical Society and the Pittsburgh Concert Society and was also awarded a Proclamation by the City of Pittsburgh for his musical accomplishments.

A passionate advocate for new music, Boyd has been involved in numerous commissions and premieres in concert and on record, and has worked directly with such legendary composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen. Boyd is also founder of the Zukofsky Quartet (Quartet-in-Residence, Bargemusic); the only ensemble to have played all of Milton Babbitt’s notoriously difficult string quartets. A musician of wide stylistic interests, Boyd has played and recorded in collaboration with jazz legend Dick Hyman and chanteuse Badomi DeCesare, and appeared in concert on the mandolin with flutist Paula Robison. As a recording artist, Boyd can be heard on the BIS, Music@Menlo Live, Naxos, Tzadik, North/South and Innova labels. Boyd has been broadcast in concert by NPR, WQXR, and WQED, and was profiled by Arizona Public Television.

Born in Pittsburgh, Boyd began his studies with Samuel LaRocca and Eugene Phillips and graduated from The Juilliard School where he studied with Sally Thomas and coached extensively with Paul Zukofsky and the legendary cellist Harvey Shapiro. Formerly on the violin faculties of Columbia University and the University of Arizona, Boyd now lives in New York with his wife Yuko, daughter Ayu and son Yuki, and plays on the “ex Stopak” Matteo Goffriller violin made in Venice in 1700.