Photo by Neda Navaee
Sophie Shao, cello
Cellist Sophie Shao, winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, is a versatile and passionate artist. Ms. Shao has appeared as soloist to critical acclaim throughout the United States. She premiered Howard Shore’s cello concerto Mythic Gardens with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, the UK premiere with Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and European premiere with Ludwig Wicki and the 21st Century Orchestra at the KKL in Lucerne. She also premiered Richard Wilson’s The Cello Has Many Secrets with the American Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Shao has given recitals in Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Middlebury College, Phillips Collection, Walter Reade Theater and Rose Studio in Lincoln Center, and Union College. She was a member of Chamber Music Society Two/Bowers Program, a young artist residency of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
A native of Houston, Texas, Ms. Shao began playing the cello at age six, and was a student of Shirley Trepel, the former principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. At age 13 she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying cello with David Soyer and chamber music with Felix Galimir. After graduating from Curtis, she continued her cello studies with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, receiving a B.A. from Yale College and an M.M. from the Yale School of Music. She is on the faculty of University of Connecticut and plays an Hieronymus Amati cello c.1700 on a generous loan.