Praised by critics for her “extraordinary musicianship" (San Diego Union Tribune) and “magical” playing (Cleveland Classical), Korean-American cellist Deborah Pae has received international acclaim for her powerful performances and devotion to the arts. 

Ms. Pae emerged onto the international stage in 2003, making her debut at the 45th GRAMMY Awards at Madison Square Garden and the Recording Academy’s Seventh Annual Salute to Classical Music honoring the late cello legend Mstislav Rostropovich. In 2005, she gave her European recital debut at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Over a 25-year career spanning North America, Europe, and Asia, she has built an award-winning profile as a soloist and chamber musician, with recordings for ECM, Orchid Classics, New World, TYXarts, Bridge, and Outhere Records. She has been a featured artist at the Marlboro, Ravinia, and Prussia Cove festivals and performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Berliner Philharmonie.

Deborah Pae is the cellist of two award-winning ensembles: the Formosa Quartet, recipients of the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the 2006 International London Quartet Competition, and the Namirovsky-Lark-Pae Trio, winners of the 2020 German Critics' Prize “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik” in the category of chamber music, one of Europe’s most prestigious honors, for their debut album Masterpieces Among Peers: Trios by Frank Bridge and Johannes Brahms. Their album, particularly their performance of Brahms’ Trio in B major, has been described as “a rendition that can actually stand comparison with some of the legendary recordings of the past, such as those by Heifetz, Feuermann and Rubinstein and Szigeti, Fournier and Schnabel.” The recording was named by the German magazine Fono Forum as one of the 5 Best Albums of 2020.

A member since 2016, Pae is cellist of the Formosa Quartet, acclaimed for its genre-defying programs and “spellbinding” performances (The Strad). For more than two decades, the quartet has pushed musical boundaries “beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling… like shots of pure espresso” (MUSO Magazine), while playing a leading role in commissioning new works and expanding the modern string quartet repertory. Its 2019 milestone album, From Hungary to Taiwan, features premiere recordings of three Formosa commissions: Lei Liang’s Song Recollections, Dana Wilson’s Hungarian Folk Songs, and Wei-Chieh Lin’s Five Taiwanese Folk Songs. During the 2025–2026 season, the ensemble gave world premiere performances of works by Shih-Hui Chen, Angelique Poteat, and Paul Novak, while Orchid Classics released its world-premiere recording of George Frederick McKay’s four string quartets in celebration of the composer’s 250th anniversary. BBC Sounds praised the recording as “just gorgeous—perfect, really.”

In addition to co-curating the ensemble’s Formosa Quartet Sets, drawing from their exclusive collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements and original compositions, Pae is also the co-founder of the American Mirror Project, a collaborative initiative exploring the history, identity, and meaning of “America.” In 2023–2024, the ensemble was appointed the M. Thelma McAndless Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities at Eastern Michigan University, where it launched its first large-scale American Mirror Project residency, engaging a community of more than 14,000 people. The project has inspired commissions including Dana Wilson’s Mirror for String Quartet and Narration (2024), Shih-Hui Chen’s A Man and a Bird Sitting on the Cloud Drinking Tea (2025), Paul Novak’s every song as an unsung stanza (2026), and Katinka Kleijn’s Stridulation (2026). The Formosa Quartet serves as the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Texas Music Festival.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Deborah is drawn to championing living composers and illuminating valuable, lesser-known works for audiences worldwide. Notable premieres include Jeffrey Mumford’s of radiances blossoming in expanding air in May 2016, a concerto for cello and chamber orchestra with Matthew Szymanski and the Phoenix Orchestra of Boston, whose harmonic material draws in part on the letters of her first name: D, E♭, B♭, A, and H. She also gave the world premiere of Dana Wilson’s Out of Darkness…, a concerto for cello and chamber wind ensemble with Mary Schneider and the Eastern Michigan University Wind Symphony in November 2024. The work responds to the ongoing human tragedies in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. In 2025, she gave the Michigan premiere of Anna Clyne’s Dances for Cello and Orchestra with Nan Washburn and the Michigan Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrating their 80th season. In October 2026, she will give the world premiere of Derrick Skye’s double concerto, Tesseract, with violinist Tessa Lark, Hugh Wolff, and the New England Conservatory Orchestra. Rooted predominantly in Afro-Persian influences, the work draws upon the rich musical heritage of the Persian Dastgah Mahur while weaving dynamic rhythms from West Africa and Eastern European folk traditions.

Ms. Pae is Professor of Cello at Eastern Michigan University, where she is a recipient of the 2026 Women of Excellence Faculty Award, recognizing her leadership and sustained commitment to advancing women’s development, and the 2021 Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award in Creativity, the highest honor presented to an individual faculty member. Starting the cello at age four, she has received degrees from the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Belgium, where her mentors include cellists Gary Hoffman, Laurence Lesser, Joel Krosnick, André Emelianoff, and Nellis Delay; violist Kim Kashkashian; and violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Arts advocacy is an integral part of Ms. Pae’s musical life. Since 2021, she has served as Governor of the Recording Academy® Chicago Chapter Board and has worked closely with MusiCares, a non-profit providing a safety net of critical health and welfare services to the music community. She also works with young professionals and educational institutions throughout the country, giving instrumental masterclasses and workshops on career development, financial literacy, and team building.

Ms. Pae travels and performs with her trusty companion, a Vincenzo Postiglione cello (c. 1885) from Naples, Italy.

Copyright © 2026 Deborah Pae. All rights reserved. Please discard all previously dated materials.