Paul Wiancko has led an exceptionally multifaceted musical life as a composer and cellist. As a performer, he has collaborated with Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, Nico Muhly, and members of the Guarneri, Takács, JACK, Parker, Orion, and Juilliard quartets. Chosen as one of Kronos Quartet’s “50 for the Future”, Paul’s own music has been described as “dazzling”, “compelling” (Star Tribune) and “vital pieces that avoid the predictable” (Allan Kozinn). His 25-minute quartet LIFT is featured on the Aizuri Quartet’s Grammy-nominated album Blueprinting, one of NPR’s top 10 classical albums of 2018.

As a student, Paul was simultaneously winning international cello competitions (which led him, most notably, to Poland to perform the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra) and recording strings for local punk bands in his dorm room. That duality embedded itself in Paul's artistic DNA and soon resulted in collaborations with Chick Corea, Etta James, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, and members of Arcade Fire, The National, Blonde Redhead, and many others.

An avid chamber musician, Paul's performances with Musicians From Marlboro have been described as "utterly transparent" and "so full of earthy vitality and sheer sensual pleasure that it made you happy to be alive" (Washington Post). In 2009, he joined the award-winning Harlem Quartet, with whom he spent 3 years performing and teaching extensively throughout the US, Europe, South America, and Africa. Paul currently writes and performs as a member of the viola and cello duo Ayane & Paul, and appears regularly with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME).

Winner of the S&R Foundation's Washington Award for Composition, Paul has been invited to be composer-in-residence at the Caramoor, Spoleto, Twickenham, Newburyport, Portland, and Methow Valley Festivals. Recent commissions include works for the Aizuri, Parker, St. Lawrence, Kronos, Eybler, and Attacca Quartets, yMusic, violinist Alexi Kenney, violistAyane Kozasa, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony. NPR recently wrote, “If Haydn were alive to write a string quartet today, it may sound something like Paul Wiancko's LIFT.”

In 2019, Paul’s music was premiered by Alexi Kenney at Wigmore Hall, the Eybler Quartet at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Tessa Lark, Marina Piccinini, and Michael Thurber at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet with oboist James Austin Smith at Spoleto Festival USA, where he was the Bank of America Composer-in-Residence.

Paul performs on a 2010 Mario Miralles violoncello and lives in New York. He is passionate about woodworking and hiking, and never travels without a tenkara fly-fishing rod.

The Blue Note with Chick Corea

EL VY on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Photo: Leonardo Ramirez

Bird-s Eye Trio

Brightwave + Dawn of Midi at the Ecstatic Music Festival

Photo: Charina Pitzel

Lutoslawski Cello Concerto with the Polish Radio Symphony

American Contemporary Music Ensemble

Ayane & Paul

Mark Morris Dance Group

Photo: Charina Pitzel

Chick Corea + Gary Burton + Harlem Quartet

Jóhann Jóhannsson + ACME

Photo: Leonardo Ramirez