Robert Becker, M.M.

Robert Becker is a graduate of the Juilliard School. Serving for an unprecedented three years as the assistant to the Juilliard Quartet’s Robert Mann, he received the Werter Award for “outstanding contribution to the field of chamber music” upon graduation. A Naumberg Award winner as a founding member of the American String Quartet, he has also been awarded the Vera Barstow First Prize in the Coleman Chamber Music Competition as a member of that ensemble as well as later serving as the violist of the New York String Quartet.

At the age of 17, he was appointed principal viola of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra while attending the Blair Academy and Peabody/Vanderbilt University prior to moving to New York and Juilliard. Principal and solo Viola of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra since 1982, he is also the Principal Viola of Opera Pacific and solo violist for visiting ballet companies to the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Former coordinator of student chamber music for the Aspen Music Festival, he is well known as a chamber music coach as well as a performer. He is an internationally known viola pedagogue and is dedicated to the training of young violists as well as his work with Azusa Pacific University and Chapman University’s college students. His film recordings are too numerous (over 400) to list as well as records and television soundtrack recordings.

Founder of the “Viola Workout” in Colorado to focus young violists on technique, plus musical and personal growth, he is an avid backpacker, fly-fisherman, amateur chef, and dedicated but mediocre golfer. Proud father of twin daughters Laura and Allison, he counts them as his life’s best accomplishment! Joining them on a trip to Kenya in 1999 to dig water wells for the people of Limuru, he has accepted that he is not at all skilled with things like a shovel and will content himself with the viola for the immediate future.