Cibrán Sierra Vázquez

Univ.-Prof. for Chamber Music⋅Department String Studies⋅Institute for Chamber Music

Cibrán Sierra Vázquez's conviction of chamber music as a metaphor of an enlightened society that embodies essential democratic and ethical values such as civility, respect, listening, and diversity motivated him to pursue a dedicated teaching career: first at the University of Gothenburg, later as part of a chamber music chair at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza, and since 2020 as a chamber music professor at the Mozarteum University. Following his passion for chamber music, he founded his string quartet Cuarteto Quiroga in 2003.

Cibrán Sierra studied in his home country (Conservatorio Superior de Música in Vigo, Galicia) and continued his studies with Deborah Hamburger, Milan Vitek, Per Enoksson and Keiko Wataya at the Amsterdam Conservatory (Master Music), at Oberlin College, USA (artist diploma) and on from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden (soloist diploma). Specialized string quartet studies with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet), Walter Levin (LaSalle Quartet) and Hatto Beyerle (Alban Berg Quartet) at the Reina Sofia School in Madrid, the Basel Music Academy and the European Chamber Music Academy have profoundly influenced his musical personality. With a keen interest in ensemble playing and understanding that performance practice must take historical perspectives into account, he appears regularly as guest concertmaster or section leader in professional orchestras and ensembles dedicated to historical performance practice, including the Orchester Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Göteborgs Symphonieorchester-GSO, Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Helsingborgs Symphonieorchester, Real Filharmonia Galicia, Forma Antiqva, La Tempestad, Academia de las Luces, Oviedo Opera, etc. He also works with Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conductors like John Eliot Gardiner, Frans Brüggen, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Gustavo Dudamel, Lawrence Foster , Andrew Manze, Hannu Lintu, Aarón Zapico, James Ross, Sir Colin Davis or Jordi Savall among others.

As a violinist he has received several awards, including the Guido Vecchi Prize (Gothenburg, 2003), 1st prize at the Voldrich Competition (Sweden) and the Bärenreiter Prize (Jenuesses Musicales Competition, Spain 2000). He performs as a soloist with several symphony orchestras (Göteborg SO, Real Filharmonía Galicia, Spanish Radio SO, Bilbao SO, Castilla&León SO, etc.) and is an avid recitalist. The greatest pleasure of his concert career is playing with his string quartet and working with partners such as Martha Argerich, Veronika Hagen, Jörg Widmann, Valentin Erben, Javier Perianes, Eric Hoeprich, Jonathan Brown, Antje Weithaas, David Kadouch and members of the Alban Berg, Hagen, Meta4, Casals, Jerusalem and Doric string quartets.

Cibrán Sierra-Vázquez is a frequent participant in outreach programs and was the founder and artistic director of the chamber music season “Sen Batuta”, which took place in his Galician hometown of Ourense between 2007 and 2013. As an active researcher, he has published several articles and essays on chamber music, programming and music education in various music magazines and newspapers (including The Strad, El Pais, Cultural, Scherzo, RMC) and is the author of the book "El Cuarteto de Cuerda: Laboratorio para una sociedad ilustrada” (The String Quartet: Laboratory of an Enlightened Society), published in 2014 by Alianza Editorial, one of the leading publishing houses in the Spanish-speaking world. Thanks to the generous loan of Paola Modiano's heirs, he plays the violin by Nicola Amati "Arnold Rosé" (Cremona, 1682).

The Cuarteto Quiroga, bearing the legacy of the great Galician violinist Manuel Quiroga, has been awarded major prizes at the most important international string quartet competitions (Bordeaux, Geneva, Paolo Borciani, Beijing, Paris), as well as the Spanish National Music Prize 2018, the Spanish Radio Culture Prize and the Gold Medal of the Palau in Barcelona. Cibrán enjoys worldwide touring with his string quartet, performing at the most important venues and festivals on the international scene (Wigmore Hall London, Philharmonie & Konzerthaus Berlin, Frick Collection & Lincoln Center New York, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Doelen Rotterdam, Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Beijing National Concert Hall, Pierre Boulez Hall, Laieszehalle Hamburg, etc.). They have released seven CDs on Cobra and Harmonia Mundi, which have received unanimous acclaim from critics and audiences alike. The ensemble is considered one of the most dynamic, daring and important new generation quartets in Europe, described by The New York Times as "exquisite, precise, perfectly balanced" and by The Strad as "excellent, with an impeccable technique".