David Requiro
Chair, String Studies • Associate Professor of Cello
Strings

First-prize winner of the 2008 Naumburg International Violoncello Competition, the Washington International and Irving M. Klein International String Competitions and the Gaspar Cassadó International Violoncello Competition in Hachioji, Japan—coupled with the prize for the best performances of works by Cassadó—David Requiro (pronounced re-KEER-oh) has emerged as one of today’s finest American cellists. 

Requiro has made concerto appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic and several orchestras from California—including the Marin, Oakland East Bay, Peninsula, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Stockton symphonies. Prior to joining the University of Colorado Boulder as assistant professor of cello in 2015, Requiro served as artist-in-residence at the University of Puget Sound and as a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan. His artist faculty appointments include the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival, Giverny Chamber Music Festival, Innsbrook Music Festival and Institute, Maui Classical Music Festival and Olympic Music Festival. As a member of the Baumer String Quartet, he co-founded the annual Monterey Chamber Music Workshop.

Additionally, Requiro has been featured as soloist with the Ann Arbor, Breckenridge, Canton, Edmonton, Lansing, Olympia, Pine Bluff and Santa Fe Symphony orchestras as well as with the Northwest Sinfonietta, Symphony ProMusica and Naples Philharmonic. Requiro’s Carnegie Hall debut recital at Weill Hall was followed by a critically acclaimed San Francisco Performances recital at the Herbst Theatre. Soon after making his Kennedy Center debut, he also completed the cycle of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Cello at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Actively involved in contemporary music, Requiro appeared as a guest artist at the 2010 Amsterdam Cello Biennale where he gave the Dutch premiere of Pierre Jalbert’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. He has collaborated with composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki and Bright Sheng as well as with members of the Aspen Percussion Ensemble, giving the Aspen Music Festival premiere of Tan Dun’s concerto “Elegy: Snow in June” for cello and percussion. An avid chamber musician, Requiro is a founding member of the Baumer String Quartet and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Concertante Chamber Players, ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra) and the Alexander String Quartet. For over eight seasons, he has served as a frequent performing artist of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players Series in New York City. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center appointed Requiro to its prestigious Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) beginning in the 2018-2019 season.

A native of Oakland, California, Requiro began cello studies at age 6; his teachers have included Milly Rosner, Bonnie Hampton, Mark Churchill, Michel Strauss and Richard Aaron.

Cello studio