Recent PACO News

Masterclass With Christopher Costanza

By Emma Spence - October 25, 2025 - On Sunday the 19th of October, clad in a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt,  Christopher Costanza took the Leder Masterclass stage. Soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, Costanza has had an extensive and varied musical career as a cellist. He has performed as a soloist across the world (literally from the Americas, to Europe, to Asia, to Oceania). Additionally, from 2003 to 2023, Costanza toured as the cellist of the Saint Lawrence String Quartet, performing in hundreds of equally global venues throughout his tenure. In 2003, Costanza became the full time artist in residence at Stanford University where he teaches (both solo and chamber music) and performs. Aside from his live music, he has made several studio recordings of his playing including his 2012 recording of the Bach Cello Suites with commentary and his 2006 Grammy- nominated recording of chamber works for winds and strings by Mozart.

The masterclass featured PACO Academy students from SuperStrings to Senior. The groups performed Mozart’s String Quintet in D Major, K 593 Mov. 1 (Josiah Chen, violin; Vinayak Vikram, violin; Joelle Lim, violin; Merryn Vaz, violin; Lucas Lai, cello), the first two movements of Villa-Lobos String Quartet No. 1 (Tien-Hung Tou, violin; Gus Hazarey, violin; Kyle Wang, cello), F. J. Haydn London Trio No. 4 in C Major I. Allegro (Chloe Wu violin; Isabel Yoo violin; Bella Zhang cello), and M. Ravel String Quartet in F Major, M. 35 Mov. 4 (Sebastian Tsai, violin; Nishi Viswanathan, violin; Sophia Chang, viola; Enoch Kim, cello).

A seasoned teacher, Costanza masterfully balanced his suggestions and reflections for each group, meeting them at their respective levels and ultimately offering feedback accessible to everyone in the room. The masterclass broached several topics including how to play together, how rests influence the piece, how to bring out the emotions of the music physically and how to share a musical line between instruments. The ideas presented in the masterclass (not limited to the aforementioned subjects) were pertinent for both the chamber groups performing as well as the audience and were presented in very comprehensible ways. The improvements the groups made in such a short amount of time was striking.

Ultimately this event was an exciting opener for the masterclass season, full of excellent advice from an incredible and experienced clinician. The masterclass was well attended, though anyone who was not able to attend in person or on the live stream can now access the masterclass on the PACO YouTube channel (Parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4).

Make sure to attend the next installment of the Leder Masterclass series on Sunday, Feb 22, 2026 with Robin Sharp and hear all the Academy groups perform on November 16th at the Palo Alto Arts Center!