Past Events › CelloChats

CelloChat: Michael Haber – My Musical Lineage 1860-2022: From Russia to America

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Cellist Michael Haber is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brandeis University and did graduate work at Harvard and Indiana University. His cello teachers were Janos Starker, Mihaly Virizlay and Gregor Piatigorsky. He is a former member of The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, the Casals Festival Orchestra under Pablo Casals and was the principal cellist of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra. As cellist of the Composers Quartet, in residence at Columbia University, he toured and recorded internationally, as he did with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For more than 20 years, he was the cellist of The Gabrielli Trio.

CelloChat: Austin Huntington – The Two Sides of the Screen

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Austin Huntington was appointed principal cellist of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in June 2015 at the age of 20, currently making him one of the youngest principal musicians in a major American orchestra. He was recently the runner-up for the San Francisco Symphony’s principal cello position in March 2022 as well as a finalist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s principal cello position in March 2018. During the summer, Austin is a principal cellist for the Mainly Mozart Festival and Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestras.

CelloChat: Paul Katz – What I Learned from Greenhouse, Piatigorsky, Rose, Starker

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Paul Katz is known to concertgoers the world over as cellist of the Cleveland Quartet, which, during an international career of 26 years, made more than 2,500 appearances on four continents. As a member of this celebrated ensemble from 1969 to 1995, Katz performed at the White House and on many television shows, including "CBS Sunday Morning," NBC's "Today Show," "The Grammy Awards" (the first classical musicians to appear on that show), and in "In The Mainstream The Cleveland Quartet," a one-hour documentary televised across the U.S. and Canada.

CelloChat: Julia Lichten – Practical Solutions for Sound Production Problems

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Julia Lichten enjoys a varied career as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and teacher and coach in the New York area. She received degrees from Harvard-Radcliffe and the New England Conservatory, followed by two years of study at the Mannes College of Music. Her major teachers were Mischa Nieland and Paul Tobias. A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1995, she has toured as a soloist with Orpheus, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro and the American Chamber Players.

CelloChat: Amos Yang

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Amos Yang has been assistant principal cellist with the San Francisco Symphony since 2007. He was previously a member of the Seattle Symphony. Yang has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, the Far East, and Europe, appearing at the Aspen Music Festival, the American Academy in Rome, Wigmore Hall, and Alice Tully Hall. He has collaborated with the Ying Quartet, Turtle Island String Quartet, pianists Ann Schein and Melvin Chen, violinist Earl Carlyss, and composer Bright Sheng.

CelloChat: Jan Vogler – Cello Sound

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Jan Vogler’s distinguished career has brought him together with renowned conductors and internationally acclaimed orchestras around the world, such as New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and London Philharmonic Orchestra. His great ability allowed him to explore the sound boundaries of the cello and to establish an intensive dialogue with contemporary composers and artists. This includes regular world premieres, including works by Tigran Mansurian (with WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov), John Harbison (with Mira Wang and the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Udo Zimmermann (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Wolfgang Rihm (Double Concerto with Mira Wang), Jörg Widman (Cello Concerto Dunkle Saiten, dedicated to Jan Vogler himself) and Nico Muhly, Sven Helbig and Zhou-Long (Drei Kontinente – Konzert für Cello und Orchester, composed for Jan Vogler). The New York Times praises his “soulful, richly hued playing” and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung grants him the ability “to make his cello speak like a singing voice”.

CelloChat: Brant Taylor – Finding Simplicity in the Bow Arm

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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.

CelloChat: Natasha Brofsky – Get To Know Your Surroundings: How to Use the Score to Inspire You in the Practice Room

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Natasha Brofsky is cellist of the Naumburg Award-winning Peabody Trio, which has performed on leading chamber music series throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. The trio has been heard on numerous radio broadcasts, and has recorded on the New World, CRI, and Artek labels. She has performed as a guest artist with numerous ensembles, including the Takacs, Prazak, Cassatt, Norwegian, Jupiter, Ying, and Borromeo quartets.

CelloChat: Darrett Adkins

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Darrett Adkins performs around the world as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed in US premieres of concertos by Donatoni, Wallin, and Nordheim, as well as world premieres of concertos by Andrew Mead and Jeffrey Mumford. He gave the first NY performance of Berio's Sequenza XIV and the US premiere of Messiaen's Concerto for Four with the Aspen Festival Orchestra. From 2018 to 2019, he undertook two 14-city tours of China, and alongside Robert Spano, premiered Stephen Hartke's Da Pacem, a cello concerto co-commissioned by Aspen and Oberlin.

CelloChat: Q&A with Santiago Cañón-Valencia

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Santiago Cañón-Valencia has been praised as one of the most promising young cellists of his generation. Born in Bogota in 1995, his major musical mentors have been Henryk Zarzycki in Colombia, James Tennant in New Zealand, Andres Diaz in the United States and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Kronberg Academy in Germany.

CelloChat: Christopher Costanza – Perspectives on the Performance of Strauss’s Don Quixote

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For over three decades cellist Christopher Costanza has enjoyed a varied and exciting career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and a recipient of a prestigious Solo Recitalists Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mr. Costanza has performed to wide critical acclaim in nearly every state in the U.S., and in Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Romania, and Hungary.

CelloChat: Robert Jesselson – Kinesthetics and Calisthenics for Cellists

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Robert Jesselson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches cello and plays in the American Arts Trio and the Jesselson/Fugo Duo. In 2013 he was named as the Governor’s Professor of the Year by the SC Commission on Higher Education.

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