Robert Brophy

Robert Brophy can be seen and heard playing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera and many West Coast chamber music series. He is featured with Nigel Kennedy in a quartet for Kennedy’s new release Greatest Hits on theEMI label and has performed alongside Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Michel Dalberto and Dmitri Sitkovetsky. He won the viola audition with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in December 2011.

An advocate for new music and former member of the Ensō Quartet, Robert has worked with many leading composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Joan Tower, William Bolcom, Tan Dun and Bernard Rands. Of the Ensō Quartet’s concerts, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted, “It was standing room only,” while The Strad applauded their “totally committed, imaginative interpretation.” The quartet earned its place in the ensemble world with multiple honors at the 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition, including best performance of the pièce de concert, for the quartet’s riveting performance of Stewart Grant’s String Quartet No. 2. It also won awards at the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International, the Fischoff National Chamber Music and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs competitions. Robert can be heard on two recordings with the Ensō Quartet on the Naxos label,

In Los Angeles, Robert continues his quartet life as a member of the New Hollywood String Quartet, performing with them throughout the Southland for the last six years. This quartet recently became quartet-in-residence at South Pasadena Library’s Restoration Concert Series.

Robert holds degrees from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England and Rice University, where he studied with James Dunham, formerly of the Cleveland Quartet. When not busy making music, he enjoys cooking, sailing and hiking with his German Shepherd, Sascha.