Pierre Lapointe, Violist

Pierre Lapointe is the violist of the Escher Quartet, founding the group in 2005 with violinist Adam Barnett-Hart, violinist Wu Jie, and cellist Andrew Janss. The Escher Quartet was a member of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) from 2006 to 2009 and continues to perform extensively in the United States and all over the world. In 2012 he completed a thesis on Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Second Quartet to earn a doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music and finished almost simultaneously a recording project of all four of Zemlinsky’s string quartets with the Escher Quartet on the Naxos label.

Before devoting himself entirely to the viola, he played the violin and studied composition. In 2002 he performed his first string quartet to great acclaim on the show Young Artists of CBC Radio in Canada. He also received a prize in 2004 from the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec for his work at the Gatineau Music Conservatory and was granted a gold medal by the University of Ottawa in 2000 for his undergraduate studies in composition and violin performance. His main teachers were Yaëla Hertz Berkson, Calvin Sieb, and Lawrence Dutton.  Since 2015, Mr. Lapointe has been teaching chamber music at the Southern Methodist University of Dallas, and he is presently one of its adjunct professors.

Mr. Lapointe performs at CCCMF 2024 on October 10, 11, 13, and 14