Aurelien Petillot
Workshop Faculty
French Violist Aurélien Pétillot has garnered much esteem as a versatile and engaging performer, lecturer, and pedagogue. He has been invited as a guest artist and soloist by many ensembles and orchestras, in Europe and North America, both on Baroque and modern violas. A passionate chamber musician, and an ardent advocate of music by living composers, he is the founder and artistic director of Viola By Choice, a non-profit chamber ensemble dedicated to promoting the originality, versatility and importance of the viola and its repertoire. Viola By Choice received the 2009 “Best body of work” Austin Table Critics Award, and released its first CD, Florilegium in 2010. He is also a founding member of the Chiaroscuro trio, whose CD of contemporary American works for contralto, viola, and piano will be released in the fall by Albany Records.
Aurélien Pétillot holds a Bachelor’s in musicology and performance from the Paris-Sorbonne University, a Master’s from the Mannes College of Music, in New York, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to moving to Eau Claire, Dr. Pétillot was the viola and music history faculty at the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, faculty artist with the Austin Chamber Music Center, and at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. He also played regularly with the Illinois, Southern Illinois, Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Victoria symphony orchestras, as well as the Austin Lyric Opera and Ballet Austin. His lecture/recital entitled Death Symbolism as Creative Hallmark in Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, based on his doctoral thesis, has been presented in various universities in America and in France as part of the commemorations celebrating the 100th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth. Other lectures have dealt with humor in music, the inter-relationships between the arts, and of course, the viola…
