Ashan Pillai

Who is Ashan Pillai?

Ashan Diresh Pillai 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, New York's Carnegie Hall and festivals throughout the world including Salzburg, Tanglewood, Banff, Ravinia, Aspen, Pau Casals, and Schleswig-Holstein.

Pillai has performed as soloist under the batons of Christian Zacharias, 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, and collaborated with the likes of Lynn Harrell, Zacarias, the Kreutzer and Brodsky Quartets, and the Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt.