Efe Baltacigil

Efe Baltacigil joined the Seattle Symphony in the 2011–2012 season as Principal Cello and was given 1680 Cremonese Francesco Rugieri cello by his Turkish Sponsor in 2010. Mr. Baltacıgil won the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He was also awarded The Peter Jay Sharp Prize, which presented his New York debut in December 2005, and the Washington Performing Arts Society Prize, which presented his Washington, DC, debut in April 2006. In past seasons, he has debuted at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston; appeared at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in Richard Goode’s Perspectives series; and given performances at the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, the North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University (ND), and the Buffalo Chamber Music Society. Mr. Baltacıgil has performed the Brahms Sextet with Pinchas Zukerman, Midori, and Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall for Isaac Stern’s memorial, and participated in Mr. Ma’s Silk Road Project. He has also appeared as a soloist in the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra conducted by Otto-Werner Mueller. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and is a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. Mr. Baltacıgil was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He started studying the violin at the age of five and changed to the cello at the age of seven. He received his bachelor’s degree from Mimar Sinan University Conservatory in Istanbul in 1998 and an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2002, where he studied with Peter Wiley and David Soyer. He was the recipient of The Curtis Institute’s Jacqueline DuPré Scholarship. His hobbies include windsurfing, sailing, drawing, and volley pong.