Biography:
Growing up in Vienna, Austria, and Munich, Germany, Paul Dwyer originally wanted to play the double bass, but was told he was too short. His explorations on the cello began soon thereafter. Paul enjoys a rich musical life involving everything from early music on baroque cello to brand new works by young composers. He has appeared as soloist and chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art and has performed chamber music with Jordi Savall, Menahem Pressler, and artist-faculty of the Juilliard School and Aspen Music Festival. A prize-winner of numerous competitions, Paul is also the recipient of the Javits Fellowship, Presser Award and a Fulbright Fellowship for studies with Anner Bylsma and Frances-Marie Uitti in Amsterdam. Paul holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Michigan, and an additional graduate degree in historical performance from The Juilliard School. Paul is the founding cellist of the Diderot String Quartet and ACRONYM and has served as tenured cellist of the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra in Boston. Paul was appointed Assistant Principal cellist of Lyric Opera of Chicago in September 2015.
Winner of a "best soloist" award in a BBC big band competition in 1989, Paul Dwyer has remained one of Canada's top instrumentalists. His album, Fables & Dreams, received a Juno award (Canada's equivalent of the Grammy) as "best mainstream jazz recording of 1993". Originally released on the small, Sunny Moon label, it was reissued, in September 1993, by Justin Time. While he continues to lead his own group, featuring bassist Dave Young and drummer Michel Lambert, Dwyer remains one of Canada's leading sidemen, performing with such artists as Rene Rosnes, Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole and Boz Scaggs. He toured with Canadian pop singer, Gino Vannelli, in 1995, and Vancouver-born trumpet player Ingrid Jensen in early 2001.
Studying music since early childhood, Dwyer received a Canadian Arts Council grant, at the age of seventeen, to study privately in New York. While in the Big Apple, he played with such influential jazz musicians as Steve Grossman, Kenny Barron and Lenny White and sat in with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
Returning to Vancouver, in the mid-1980s, Dwyer worked with bassist David Freisen's trio and Hugh Fraser's quartet. He relocated to Toronto in 1989.
Dwyer has increasingly garnered acclaim as a composer. He debuted his original piece, "Variations On A Theme By Barber", in 1999, and was commissioned to write "Land Of Sleepless Dreams", for chamber group, Amici. He performed orchestral arrangements of his work at the Liepaja International Piano Stars Festival in Latvia.
Paul Dwyer was born on November 7th1963 in Liverpool, UK.
Paul began learning to play the guitar at the age of 12. He completed his education at the Royal Northern College of Music with Gordon Crosskey and John Williams. Between the years 1991 and 1993 three of his songs made it into the top 10 in Europe. Over the past 20 years, Paul has worked with a number of different musicians, directors and film companies. He formed his own music production company called Selina Music Productions in 2000.
Since living in Turkey, Paul, a fluent Turkish speaker, has created his own television series in which he tours all over Turkey presenting it through the eyes of a foreigner. Paul continues to live and work in Istanbul, Turkey.
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Cellist Paul Dwyer was born in Munster, Indiana, but spent the most formative years of his life (according to Freud) in Vienna, where he decided to play the double bass, but was told he’s too small. At age eight his family moved to Munich, where Paul spent most of his time playing soccer, running subversive school newspapers and transcribing Metallica songs for a heavy metal cello quartet he formed with his best friends. In 12th grade, he made his opera debut singing the role of Polyphemus in Handel's Acis and Galatea.
In 2003, Paul followed his roots back to the American Midwest for college, studying at the Oberlin Conservatory (B.M. '07) and the University of Michigan (M.M. '08; D.M.A. '12), where he was the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and a Theodore Presser Award, and served as teaching assistant to Richard Aaron. He also spent a year back in good old Europe as a Fulbright Fellow in Amsterdam, delving into contemporary music with Frances-Marie Uitti and baroque cello with Anner Byslma. In 2013, he completed additional graduate studies in the Historical Performance department of The Juilliard School.
Paul is fortunate to have a rich musical life playing both historical and modern cello. He loves to play chamber music and collaborate with young composers. He is a founding member of the Diderot String Quartet, ACRONYM, and The Colonials, and plays with ensembles such as the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston, Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra in downtown Manhattan, and House of Time. He has been featured in the New York Times and published an article about the Bach Cello Suites in Early Music America Magazine. In the fall of 2015 he was appointed Assistant Principal cello of Lyric Opera of Chicago. He lives with his wife, Adriane, in Brooklyn.