Yosef Tamir-Smirnoff grew up in Moscow, and at the age of 6 he began studying the violin at the Tchaikovsky Institute of Music with Irina Kouznetsova.  He subsequently studied violin and viola in Tel Aviv with Leonid Rozenberg, but had chosen viola as his principal study by the time he immigrated to Canada in 1995.  Yosef then studied in Montreal with Alexei Dyachkov, the former violist of the Shostakovich Quartet, and in Bloomington at Indiana University where he was the teaching assistant of Alan DeVeritch and the recipient of the Nina Neil Scholarship.  After graduating from Indiana with an Artist’s Diploma, Yosef moved to Toronto to study at the Glenn Gould School with Steven Dann.

Yosef has enjoyed considerable success in numerous competitions:  he won first prize in the Prix d’Expression Musicale Solo Competition, the International Chamber Orchestra Concerto competition and the Kuttner Quartet Competition, and second prize in both the American String Teacher’s Association and Montreal Symphony Orchestra Solo Competitions.

Yosef has been principal violist with the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra and played with I Musici de Montreal. He performed with some of the world’s greatest conductors - James Levine, Yuri Temerkanov, Kurt Mazur, Yuri Bashmet, Mstislav Rostropovich, Kent Nagano, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Paavo Jarvi. He holds the position of Assistant Principal Viola with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and he is also member of the Canadian Opera Company.
 

Yosef is a highly sought-after chamber musician and has collaborated with many eminent musicians.  In 2003, the St Petersburg Quartet invited him to perform with them during their tour of Mexico and the U.S. He has also performed with the Ying Quartet, Pinchas Zukermann, Jonathan Crow, Ruth Laredo, Ilya Kaler, Jasper Wood, Measha Brueggergosman, and Toronto’s ARC Ensemble (with Erika Raum and David Louie among others), and his performances have been broadcast on NBC Television, CBC Radio and WQSR radio.  Yosef joined the Tokai String Quartet in October 2003.

 

Yosef's biography also available in MS Word format