David Finckel’s dynamic musical career has included performances on the world’s stages in the roles of recitalist, chamber artist, and orchestral soloist. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, he was the winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. In 1979 he joined the Emerson String Quartet, and during thirty-four seasons garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. His quartet performances and recordings include quartet cycles of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Brahms, Bartók, and Shostakovich, as well as collaborative masterpieces and commissioned works.
In 1997, David Finckel and Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas and Pierre Jalbert, and his orchestral recordings include both the Dvořák and Harbison concertos.
Artistic Co-Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he also co-founded Music@Menlo in 2003, an innovative summer chamber music festival in Silicon Valley.
David Finckel taught extensively with the late Isaac Stern in America, Israel and Japan, he is currently a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University and oversees both CMS’s Bowers Program and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. Passionately dedicated to education for musicians of all ages and experience, he developed a special Resource section of his website (davidfinckelandwuhan.com/resource) to provide, at no cost, a wealth of guidance for students on both music study and careers, as well as invaluable information for arts organizations and individuals on every aspect of concert presenting. David’s 100 online lessons on cello technique, Cello Talks, are viewed by an international audience of musicians (cellotalks.com).
Along with pianist Wu Han, David Finckel was the recipient of Musical America’s 2012 Musicians of the Year Award.
