TEACHER OF CELLO

DIRECTOR OF STRING GROUP CLASSES AND CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

Cellist Kate Kayaian is known for her stunning artistry and for her passion for collaboration. She maintains a rigorous schedule balancing her own performances with her teaching and conducting positions and musical exchange projects around the world. Her 2018-19 schedule includes recitals and concerts in Boston, Chicago, Florida, Charleston and Savannah, Seattle, Victoria, BC, Houston, Bermuda, and throughout the New England area. An avid collaborator, she has toured around France, Italy, Greece and Turkey with members of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo performing chamber music in such incredible venues as the ruins of Ephesus. Other recent chamber music highlights include performances in Fort Lauderdale with the principals of the South Florida Symphony, and a commemorative concert of the Charles Ives Piano Trio at the composer’s alma mater the Hopkins School in New Haven.

A strong advocate for new music, Kate works closely with today’s leading composers and has premiered works by Michael Gandolfi, Kati Agoc, John Adams, Steven Mackey, Jonathan Bailey Holland and Andrew Norman amongst many others. She performs and records regularly with such acclaimed ensembles as the GRAMMY nominated group Boston Modern Orchestra Project and has had the honor of working with the world’s most esteemed conductors and proponents of contemporary music: Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, Gil Rose and Michael Tilson-Thomas. She is currently working on a new project recording works for solo cello written by friends and colleagues from the Boston area.

Originally from Chicago, IL, Kate came to Boston to pursue her degree at the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied cello with Colin Carr, and chamber music with Eugene Lehner, Irma Vallecillo, Scott Nickrenz and the Borromeo String Quartet. Subsequently, she won a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony where she performed as principal cellist under the baton of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and was a frequent performer in the chamber music series. She spent two years at the Spoleto (U.S.A.) festival, and three summers at the Tanglewood Music Center where she was a member of the Conductor’s Quintet. While in residence there, she was involved in many collaborative projects with groups such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Company and Shakespeare and Company.

Kate is the Director of Chamber Music for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras and maintains an active studio of private students in Boston and at the Bermuda School of Music in Hamilton, Bermuda. She has traveled frequently to South Africa and Kenya to facilitate cultural exchanges between young African and American music students and has made recent trips to Mexico and India for similar projects. When she is not playing or teaching the cello, she can be found sailing, gardening, watering her collection of neglected houseplants, and moving furniture back and forth around her house. She lives with her husband Paul in Hamilton, Bermuda and Boston, Massachusetts, and can be heard on the Naxos, RCA, and BMOP/sound recording labels. Kate plays on a 1947 Primo Contavalli cello and a bow by François Nicolas Voirin.