Paul Wiancko

Paul Wiancko was born in San Clemente, California. He began playing the cello at age 5 and composed his first piece at age 8. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles to freelance while earning cello performance degrees with Ronald Leonard from the University of Southern California and the Colburn School. While in school, Wiancko converted his dorm room into a production studio. There, he created arrangements and recorded strings for bands such as Yellowcard and Veruca Salt, and worked with the producers of numerous other artists including Pennywise, U2, and Pearl Jam.

Wiancko came to international attention in 2007 when he tied for 2nd Prize in the Lutoslawski International Cello Competition, which led to his playing the Witold Lutosławski Cello concerto with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 he moved to New York City, and soon after joined the Harlem Quartet, with whom he performed for three years. During that time, Wiancko toured and performed extensively with Chick Corea, and appears on Corea's albums The Continents and Hot House, the latter of which won a 2013 Grammy. Wiancko also appeared with Etta James at the Hollywood Bowl and Stanley Clarke at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

As a chamber musician, Wiancko has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Olympic Music Festival, appearing alongside members of the Guarneri String Quartet, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Ysaÿe Quartet (1984), and others. Wiancko performs with several New York-based music ensembles, including the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), Tak Ensemble, Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, Meridionalis, Bird's Eye Trio, and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME).

As a composer, one of Wiancko's first large-scale compositions was a virtuosic concerto for cello, orchestra, and electronics. Entitled "Tales From Bent City," the piece blended hip-hop, improvisation and elements from the great 19th century late-romantic composers. Wiancko has since composed works for the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Metropolitan Opera soprano Susanna Phillips, cellist Judith Serkin, violist Ayane Kozasa, yMusic, Bargemusic, and many others, and has been the composer-in-residence at Twickenham Fest, the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts and the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival. In 2016, Wiancko composed the score for the prison-drama feature film Heartlock, as well as a Mars exploration-based work for solo piano commissioned by scientist and NASA project leader Peter Smith.

Wiancko performs on a 2010 Mario Miralles violoncello and lives in Brooklyn, New York.