Sophie Shao - Cello

At the age of nineteen, cellist SOPHIE SHAO received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, and has since performed throughout the United States, Europe, Taiwan and Japan. Winner of a top prize at the 2001 Rostropovich Competition and a laureate of the XII Tchaikovsky Competition in 2002, the New York Times applauded her “eloquent, powerful” interpretations of repertoire ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Crumb.

Highlights of this season include an opening night performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony, world-premiere performances of Richard Wilson’s Concerto for Cello and Mezzo-Soprano with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, and recital and chamber music appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (where she has appeared regularly since 1998), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, Middlebury College, Union College-Schenectady, Vassar College, Music Mountain (with the Shanghai Quartet), Indianapolis Competition Laureate Series (with violinist Cho-Liang Lin) and other venues. She is a frequent guest at many of the leading festivals around the country including Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Bard Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Highlights of recent seasons include solo performances with l’Orchestre de Paris, the Houston Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taipei, and the Russian State Academic Symphony among many others. Ms. Shao last appeared in Houston during the 2006-2007 Season in a performance of Haydn’s D Major Concerto with the Maggini Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist and in recital in cities throughout the country and has collaborated with such artists as Martha Argerich, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn, Andre Watts, and many other leading musicians of our time. Ms. Shao can be heard on EMI Classics, Bridge Records (for the Marlboro Music Festival’s 50th Anniversary recording), and on Albany Records. Her recording releases in 2009 include Richard Wilson’s Brash Attacks on Albany Records and Howard Shore’s original score for the movie The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) on Howe Records.

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 on the faculty of Vassar College and the Bard Conservatory of Music.