Ashan Pillai

Ashan Pillai (born 1969 in Sri Lanka) 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. 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 Halland Purcell Room (1997-99), New York´s Carnegie Hall and festivals throughout the world including Salzburg, Tanglewood, Banff, Ravinia, Aspen, Pau Casals (Puerto Rico, France and Barcelona), 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 Brodsky and Kreutzer Quartet] , and the Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt.

He was assistant principal violist in the English Chamber Orchestra (1995-2000), co-founding member of the Mobius Ensemble (London 1997-2006) and is currently principal viola in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (from 2000), Professor of Viola at the Barcelona Conservatoire (from 2001) and violist in the Zukerman Chamber Players, the string quintet led by Pinchas Zukerman. He has as a recording artist recorded widely for EMI, Naxos, ASV, Altara, Meridian, Bel, Columna and Oehms Classics including sonatas by Bax, Debussy, Benejam, and Schubert and concertos by Hoffmeister and Mozart.