CelloChat: Brant Taylor – Finding Ease in the Left Hand
Brant Taylor’s varied career has included solo appearances and collaborations with leading artists in chamber music, orchestral, pedagogical and popular music settings on five continents. Before his appointment to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim, he was cellist of the Everest Quartet, prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, as well as a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He made his solo debut with the San Antonio Symphony at the age of 14. A dedicated teacher of both cello and chamber music, Taylor frequently combines performance and pedagogy, conducting master classes and writing articles on a wide variety of musical topics. He is a member of the faculty of DePaul University’s School of Music and serves on the board of cellobello.org, the leading online resource for all things pertaining to the cello. With the Everest Quartet, he performed and taught extensively in North America and the Caribbean and gave the world premiere of a work by Israeli-American composer Paul Schoenfield. He regularly participates in audition-training seminars and mentoring at Miami’s New World Symphony, of which he was a member and to which he has returned to perform as concerto soloist under Michael Tilson-Thomas and Nicholas McGegan.
