Spotlight | Second Violin

Ayrton Pisco

A native of Brasília, Brazil, Ayrton Pisco holds degrees from Yale University, University of Southern California and San Diego State University. He has also been a fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New World Symphony.  He has participated in several music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Sarasota, Bayreuth (Germany) and Sapporo (Japan). His principal teachers include Ani Kavafian, Margaret Batjer, Pei-Chun Tsai and his father, Ayrton Macedo Pisco.

Pisco has received top prizes in numerous competitions throughout the United States and abroad. Concert engagements have taken him across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He has also performed as a soloist in prestigious venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Jacobs Music Center and the Cláudio Santoro National Theater in Brazil.

A seasoned orchestra musician, Pisco has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and New Haven Symphony, and under the batons of conductors Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Larry Rachleff. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with principals of the New York Philharmonic and has been featured on the WQXR and KUSC radio stations.

As a music educator, Pisco previously served as a teaching artist at Yale University’s Music in Schools Initiative, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, San Diego State University Community Music School, and the Ibero-American Philharmonic Academy in Medellín, Colombia.

In addition to classical music, Pisco also enjoys performing in genres such as jazz, tango, bossa nova, choro, mariachi and others. He has collaborated with Trio Gadjo and Besos de Coco and participated in shows at House of Blues San Diego and Clube da Bossa Nova in Brazil.