Isaac Pastor-Chermak is a cellist, conductor, and teacher. Educated at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Idaho, he performs and conducts a repertoire spanning 500 years on instruments ranging from baroque cello, violoncello piccolo and viola da gamba to the most experimental electronic instruments. Based in Northern California, Pastor-Chermak is currently Principal Cellist of Portland Opera and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, Associate Principal Cellist of Stockton Symphony, and a member of Dayton Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, and Santa Cruz Symphony. In the summers, he is an orchestra member at the Eisenstadt Classical Music Festival in Austria. He is the cellist of Black Cedar Trio, a flute-cello-guitar ensemble, and frequently partners with pianist Miles Graber in sonata programs.
In addition to his duties as an orchestral cellist, Pastor-Chermak maintains a vigorous schedule of solo, chamber music, recording, conducting and teaching engagements throughout the United States and abroad. He is known for his marathon performances of Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello.
Pastor-Chermak is Beelard Foundation Artist-in-Residence at the Young Artists Conservatory of Music in Vacaville, CA, where he teaches cello lessons and directs Solano Junior Strings, a highly selective youth chamber orchestra he founded in 2015. He is a faculty member at Dominican Sisters School of Music in Fremont, CA.
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Photo: Mary Cornelison Photography