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Biography

Yotam Baruch served as the principal cellist (Solocellist) of the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, associate principal cellist of Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal and of the Jerusalem Symphony. He is the cellist of the Ben-Haim Piano Trio. He had served as the cellist of the Israel Contemporary String Quartet, and performed as a soloist and chamber musician in America, Europe and Israel's most celebrated venues, including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Phillips Collection and the MoMA. He is a founding member of the Ben-Haim Trio.

 

Born and raised in Tel-Aviv, Mr. Baruch received his early education at the Tel Aviv Conservatory of Music and at the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts. He studied the Tel Aviv University with Michael Khomitser, at The Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Amit Peled , and at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, with master cellist and teacher Janos Starker. Mr. Baruch has participated in several festivals, including Music@Menlo, Musicorda, Santa-Fe Chamber Music Festival, The Perlman Chamber Music Workshop at the Perlman Program, and the West-Eastern Divan Workshop, where he played under the baton of Maestro Daniel Barenboim.

Mr. Baruch recorded for "Meridian" and "Centaur" labels, and for the “Voice of Music” radio channel in Israel and WFIU radio of Indiana.
 

As a chamber musician, he collaborated with violinists Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell and Guy Braunshtein, clarinetists David Krakauer and Giora Feidman, cellists Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz, and singer Bobby McFerrin.

Mr. Baruch has been a recipient of scholarship support from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation since 1995. He won the first prize winner of both the 2005 the Baltimore Music Club competition in Towson, Maryland and the 2009 Matinee Musicale Competition in Indianapolis, and received several grants from IU Jacobs School of Music, including the Eva Heinitz Cello Scholarship. Recently, he was also honored with the Hatfield Merit Award by the National Society of Art and Letters.

At Indiana, while pursuing a doctorate in cello performance, Yotam did a minor in music theory. His doctoral thesis is an analysis work titled "Development Sections in the String Quintets of Mozart".

Aside from his activities as a cellist, Yotam is also an arranger and a conductor, and a teacher. A sought after teacher, he has taught at the Indiana University String Academy, at Hassadna Conservatory in Jerusalem, Tel-Hai International Piano  Masterclasses, Music@Menlo, and in the Seminars of Orpheus-of-Nazareth and Keshet Eilon.

He plays on an Italian cello by Giovanni Cavani, on loan to him from the Maginni Stiftung in Basel.

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