Uri Vardi - Cello

Uri Vardi has performed as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber player across the United States, Europe, South America and his native Israel. Born in Szeged, Hungary, Vardi grew up on kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh, Israel. He studied at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv, was an Artist Diploma student at Indiana University and earned his Master's degree from Yale University. His teachers have included Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Eva Janzer, and Uzi Wiesel.

Vardi has recorded and toured widely with the Israel Chamber Orchestra and was a founding member of the Sol-La-Re String Quartet. He has served as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and Principal Cellist of the Israel Sinfonietta.

In 1990, following an extensive teaching and performing career in Israel, Vardi was appointed professor of Cello at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to his work at Wisconsin, Vardi has taught and conducted master classes at numerous music schools including the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Indiana University, Yale University, Eastman School, Oberlin College, Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Iowa, Ohio State University, Geneva Conservatory (Switzerland), Paris Conservatory (France) and the Jerusalem Music Center (Israel). He has participated in several Summer Music Festivals across the U.S. and Israel.

Professor Vardi's students have been successful as soloists, chamber players, faculty members of major music schools, and members of major orchestras. In his teaching, Vardi puts great emphasis on the choreography of playing, the relationship between movement and sound. In order to further his understanding of this approach, Vardi has specialized in the Feldenkrais® Method, for which he received the 1999 UW-Madison Arts Institute Faculty Development Award. He completed the Feldenkrais® Practitioners Training and was certified by the Feldenkrais® Guild of North America and by the International Feldenkrais® Federation as a Feldenkrais® practitioner in 2003.