Martin Chalifour
Principal Concertmaster
Los Angeles Philharmonic
MARTIN CHALIFOUR began his tenure as Principal Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1995. The recipient of various grants and awards in his native Canada, he graduated with honors from the Montreal Conservatory at the age of 18 and then moved to Philadelphia to pursue studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. His teachers included Jascha Brodsky, David Cerone and Ivan Galamian in the United States, as well as Sonia Jelinkova and Taras Gabora in Canada.
In 1986 Chalifour received a Certificate of Honor at the Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow and was a laureate of the Montreal International Competition the following year. He has performed chamber music with artists including YoYo Ma, Emmanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman and has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Neville Marriner and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Internationally, he was a guest soloist of the Auckland Philharmonic, the Montreal Symphony, the Queensland Symphony (Australia), the National Orchestra of Taiwan, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Malaysian Philharmonic, among others.
Chalifour began his orchestral career in 1984 with the late Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, playing as Associate Concertmaster for six years. He then occupied the same position in the Cleveland Orchestra for five years, under celebrated conductor Christoph von Dohnányi. In his frequent duties as Acting Concertmaster, Chalifour led successful tour concerts in the U.S. and in Europe, as well as a historic 12 day residency in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in 1994. Chalifour also taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a founding member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio.
Chalifour is a frequent guest at several summer music festivals, including the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Ottawa International Music Festival. Maintaining close ties with his native Quebec, he returns frequently to teach and perform and most recently worked as soloist with the Quebec Symphony, Yoav Talmi conducting. Chalifour and two of his Philharmonic colleagues, Joanne Pearce Martin and Peter Stumpf, recently joined forces to form the Los Angeles Philharmonic Piano Trio. They performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in September 2005 at the Hollywood Bowl.
Chalifour is a professor at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music.
Last summer he performed and taught at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.
