World Sonata Project | Cello

kate dillingham
california

Kate Dillingham is a soloist, a collaborative artist and an avid proponent of the music of living composers. She has performed as a soloist in 18th- 21st century repertoire with The St. Petersburg Philharmonic, The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, The Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared numerous times at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Symphony Space and The DiMenna Center in New York, NY. She has performed at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, PA, The Strathmore in Bethesda, MD, and has been presented twice at the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

Ms. Dillingham has toured throughout Europe and the United States. Recent highlights include concerts at the Tseretelli Gallery in Moscow, Russia, Weill (Carnegie) Recital Hall and The DiMenna Center in New York City where she performed a recital of entirely new compositions, many of which were written expressly for her. Active in the New York freelance scene, she has performed for Broadway productions of Disney’s The Lion King and Matilda the Musical and has appeared with jazz legends Tony Bennett, Clark Terry, Jimmy Heath and Barry Harris.

Ms. Dillingham has made five recordings; Haydn’s Cello Concertos with The Moscow Chamber Orchestra and music of Claude Debussy, Arthur Honegger, and Gabriel Fauré, both for Connoisseur Society Records, and works of Witold Lutoslawski, Victor Herbert, Antonin Dvorák, and Jennifer Higdon with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Her recording project entitled CROSSINGS: New Music For Cello featuring commissioned works by composers of Random Access Music, Alia Musica and several notable individuals was achieved through “crowd- funding” and was the “Album of the Week” on WQXR’s Q2 program. Porter Anderson of Thought Catalogue writes, “ This is richly rendered music of its time: disturbing, provocative rhapsodies on quieter moments of internal need and grace — perfect for the melancholic intelligence of the cello’s prized voice.”

Following Ms. Dillingham’s New York debut, which featured world premieres of works by Augusta Read Thomas and Pulitzer Prize–winner Jennifer Higdon, the press deemed her “an excellent cellist; dignified, intelligent, and compelling. An adventurous, dedicated champion of contemporary music, she performed with admirable control, conviction, and authority.” In Jennifer Higdon’s Soliloquy, the New Music Connoisseur described her as “an extraordinary performer who displayed musical insight and emotional depth…” 

A student of Bernard Greenhouse, Ms. Dillingham received both a Bachelor (summa cum laude) and Master of Music on a full-scholarship from Rutgers University, after which she studied with Professor Maria Tchaikovskaya at the Moscow Conservatory. A long association with Mr. Greenhouse led to collaboration on an edition of the Sonatas for Violoncello and Keyboard BWV 1027-1029 by J.S. Bach, published by G. Schirmer Inc., now in its second printing, which she presented in a combined concert and lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ms. Dillingham released an album of these works on the Affetto Label with generous support from the William Scheide Fund with Grammy-nominated harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour.

Ms. Dillingham has recently been elected President of the Violoncello Society of New York. She is the Executive Director of the contemporary music collective Random Access Music (RAM) which curates and presents concerts in NYC, issues an annual “Call for Scores”, and produces the Queens New Music Festival. She is Artistic Director of CelloFest 2016 in Wellfleet, MA that included concerts, master classes and an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of her teacher, Bernard Greenhouse. She has served on the faculty at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and at The New York Summer Music Festival at SUNY, Oneonta. She is a voting member of NARAS, Chamber Music America, American Federation of Musicians, Local 802 and American String Teachers Association. Expressive phrasing and a sense of forward motion characterize her playing. Inspired by her love for performing the classics, her enthusiasm for broadening the range and repertoire for the cello has led her to commission, perform, and record the music of composers of the 21st century. When Kate is not performing on her beautiful 235-year-old antique cello, she proudly plays one of two modern instruments (2011, 2015) by master maker, Zoran Stilin.

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