Justin Goldsmith

JUSTIN GOLDSMITH is the newly-appointed cellist of the Euclid Quartet, based in South Bend, Indiana. He was born and raised in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and began violin lessons at the age of 4 before switching to the cello at age 9. Chamber music, and the string quartet in particular, became a prominent interest early on in his musical life - according to play count on iTunes, the music he listened to most in high school was Radiohead’s “OK Computer” and the Emerson Quartet’s recordings of Beethoven’s Razumovsky quartets. After studying with cellists Julie Diesslin August, Peter Seidenberg, Julia Lichten, and David Geber, Justin began his undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music with Felix Wang. After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in cello performance, he continued his studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he received a Master’s Degree under the tutelage of Peter Stumpf. While in Indiana, Justin formed the Vera Quartet, which went on to complete two-year residencies at both Indiana University and the Curtis Institute of Music. He was also a Community Artist Fellow at Curtis for two years, a fellowship position in which fellows coordinate service-based musical projects with community partners in Philadelphia.

While at Vanderbilt, Justin was principal cello from 2008 to 2011 and received the Jean Keller Heard Prize for Excellence in String Playing. His string quartet was selected by the faculty to represent the Blair School of Music in Aix-en-provence, France in the summer of 2011.

During his time at Indiana University, Justin served as principal cello in three of the school’s orchestras and performed alongside Joshua Bell, Joseph Swensen, Atar Arad, and Peter Stumpf. In 2016, the Vera Quartet was selected for a week-long residency at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Germany and in 2017 went on their first international tour representing IU in Seoul, South Korea. The quartet later went on to win numerous prizes, including the Astral Artists auditions in 2018 and top prizes at the Plowman and Yellow Springs competitions.

Justin has performed in master classes with many world-renowned pedagogues including Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz, Steven Doane, Mark Kosower, and Steven Isserlis. He has played in numerous festival orchestras across the globe, working with conductors such as Naoto Otomo, Michael Gilbert, Scott Yoo, Matthias Bamert, Stéphane Denève, and François-Xavier Roth. He plays on a 2014 Jason Viseltear cello made in New York.