Clive Greensmith — Cello
Clive Greensmith enjoyed a distinguished career as the cellist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet for 15 years (1999–2013), performing more than 100 concerts annually in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, London’s South Bank Centre, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Berliner Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Prior to his tenure with the quartet, he served as Principal Cellist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
As a chamber musician and collaborator, Greensmith has performed with many of the world’s leading artists, including András Schiff, Pinchas Zukerman, Leon Fleisher, Lynn Harrell, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Alicia de Larrocha, and Emanuel Ax. He has appeared at major festivals worldwide, among them the Aspen Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Pacific Music Festival in Japan, and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
As a soloist, he has performed with ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the RAI Orchestra of Rome. His extensive discography includes landmark recordings with the Tokyo String Quartet, most notably Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets (Harmonia Mundi), Mozart’s “Prussian” Quartets, Brahms’s Cello Sonatas with Boris Berman (Biddulph), and clarinet trios by Beethoven and Brahms with Jon Nakamatsu and Jon Manasse (Harmonia Mundi). His recording of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major with the Tokyo String Quartet was hailed as “outstanding” by the International Record Review.
A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music (studying with Donald McCall) and later the Musikhochschule Köln with Boris Pergamenschikow, Greensmith came to international attention at age 20 in a televised BBC masterclass with Paul Tortelier. He has won numerous awards, including prizes at the Premio Stradivari Competition in Cremona, Italy, which launched him into a series of major European recital and concerto appearances.
Dedicated to mentoring young musicians, Greensmith has held faculty positions at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Royal Northern College of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and for 15 years at Yale University during the Tokyo String Quartet’s residency. Since 2013, he has been Professor of Cello at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where he also served as Co-Director of String Chamber Music Studies (2013–2018). His students have gone on to win prestigious awards and secure positions in major orchestras around the world.
Greensmith has had the privilege of performing on several extraordinary instruments, including the Royal Forster Cello (owned by the Prince of Wales), the 1736 Stradivarius “Paganini Ladenburg” (on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation during his Tokyo Quartet tenure), and currently, a 1933 Simone Sacconi cello.
He is also a founding member of the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and violinist Martin Beaver, with whom he continues to tour internationally.