Sophie Shao - Cello
Cellist Sophie Shao is rapidly gaining international acclaim for her brilliant, mature interpretations of repertoire ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Crumb and Wilson. Winner of top prizes at the 2001 Rostropovich International Violoncello Competition, the XII International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2002, and a 1996 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, she has performed as a soloist with L'Orchestre de Paris with Christoph Eschenbach, American Symphony Orchestra with Leon Botstein, Russian State Academic Symphony, Houston Symphony, among many others, and has appeared in performances throughout North America, Canada, Europe, Japan and Taiwan.
In great demand as a chamber musician, she has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Gary Graffman, David Shifrin, Jaime Laredo, Andre Previn, Eugene Istomin, Cho-Liang Lin, Paquito D'Rivera, Fred Sherry, Ani Kavafian, Claude Frank, Andre Watts, Martha Argerich, and Christoph Eschenbach. Ms. Shao's many festival appearances include Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Bard, Caramoor, Bridgehampton, Sarasota, Music from Angel Fire, Vail, Saratoga, and Ravinia.
Ms. Shao can be heard on EMI Classics, playing Andre Previn's Reflections with the Curtis Orchestra under the direction of the composer. Her 1995 performance of Mendelssohn's Quartet in a minor appears on Marlboro Music Festival's 50th Anniversary Album on Bridge Records. Released by Albany Records in 2005, "Diablerie" features the music of composer Richard Wilson, performed by Rolfe Schulte, violin, Sophie Shao, cello, Allen Blustine, clarinet, and Richard Wilson, piano.
A native of Houston, Texas, Ms. Shao began playing the cello at age six, and was a student of Shirley Trepel, former principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. At age thirteen she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying cello with David Soyer and chamber music with Felix Galimir. After graduating from the Curtis Institute, she continued her cello studies with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, receiving a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale College and an M.M. from the Yale School of Music, where she was enrolled as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. She is currently on the faculty of Vassar College and the Bard Conservatory of Music.
