Praised as “passionate and elegant” by The New York Times, cellist Amy Sue Barston has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on stages all over the world, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Haan Hall (Jerusalem), The Banff Centre (Canada), The International Musicians Seminar (England), The Power House (Australia), and Chicago’s Symphony Center.
At age seventeen, she appeared as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on live television, was the Grand Prize winner in the Society of American Musicians’ Competition, and won First Place and the Audience Prize in the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition.
Beginning at age three, Amy studied with Nell Novak at the Music Institute of Chicago, Eleonore Schoenfeld at USC, and Joel Krosnick at Juilliard, where she earned her Masters degree. She also worked with Yo Yo Ma, Gary Hoffman, Ralph Kirshbaum, Tim Eddy, David Geringas, and Pinchas Zukerman.
Amy has performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony, the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, the Rockford Symphony, the USC Symphony, the Westchester Symphony, and the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, among many others. She made her first solo appearance with orchestra in Guelph, Canada when she was twelve.
Amy is artistic director of the Canandaigua Lake Music Festival in New York, and the cellist of The Corigliano Quartet, which has been hailed by Strad Magazine as having “abundant commitment and mastery,” and whose recent Naxos CD was named one of the top two recordings of the year by both the New Yorker and Gramophone Magazine. Her piano trio, Trio Vela, performs regularly at Bargemusic in New York City. She also performs regularly in duos, trios, and quartets with the world’s most celebrated fiddler, Mark O’Connor. Amy has performed sonatas and chamber music with many of the world’s leading musicians, including Leon Fleisher, Jon Kimura Parker, Arnold Steinhardt, Bernard Greenhouse, and Ani Kavafian.
Amy is also a devoted teacher: in her home, at the Juilliard School Pre-College, and at numerous summer music festivals. Several of her students commute for lessons from hundreds of miles away, some from as far away as Alaska and Japan. Amy’s upcoming schedule includes solo and chamber music performances in England, Sydney, New Zealand, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, Wisconsin, Rochester, Denver, Chicago, and Germany. Amy also has a brand new CD out and available, which she had the honor to record with Grammy Award winning contemporary classical music producer, Judith Sherman.