WENDY WARNER
About the Artist

Wendy Warner, hailed by Strings magazine for her "youthful, surging playing, natural stage presence and almost frightening technique," has become one of the leading cellists in the world. After garnering international attention with a first-prize win in the Fourth International Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 1990, audiences have watched Warner perform on many of the world's most honored stages, including New York's Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, Los Angeles'Walt Disney Hall, Paris' Salle Pleyel and Berlin's Philharmonie.

Warner has collaborated with such leading conductors as Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Joel Smirnoff, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Charles Dutoit, Eiji Oue, Neeme Jarvi, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has recently performed with the Santa Barbara, Detroit, Colorado and New World Symphonies; the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec and the Calgary Philharmonic.

Additional engagements in the US have included the Chicago, Boston, Dallas, North Carolina, Jacksonville, New Mexico, Omaha, Nashville and San Francisco Symphonies, and the Minnesota and Philadelphia Orchestras. In Europe and around the world she has performed with the London Symphony (Barbican Center), the Berlin Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony and L'Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse. She performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter and L'Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Semyon Bychkov.

Warner begins her 2008-09 season with the Anchorage Symphony in its opening concert, performing Prokoviev's Symphonie Concertante. Additional performances this season include Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra and a recital in Corpus Christi, Texas.

A passionate chamber musician, Warner has collaborated with the Vermeer String Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet, and with esteemed violinist Gidon Kremer. Recital work includes performances at the Music Institute of Chicago, Nichols Hall, the Phillips Collection and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and internationally in both Milan and Tokyo. The cellist was invited to perform in recital and with orchestra at the 70th birthday celebration concert of Rostropovich in Kronberg, Germany and with Rostropovich in the Vivaldi double concerto in Reims, France. Festival highlights include performances with El Paso ProMusic and Pendereski's Beethoven Easter Festival in Krakow.

Warner's musical career began at age six under the tutelage of Nell Novak, until she joined Mstislav Rostropovich at the Curtis Institute, from which she graduated. An accomplished pianist as well, she studied with Emilio del Rosario at The Music Center. Warner made her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in New York, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, in October 1990, playing the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1. Immediately following she was reengaged to appear with them on a North American tour in 1991. She was also the featured soloist on the 1991 European tour of the Bamberg Symphony, again conducted by Rostropovich, making her debuts in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Koln, Dusseldorf and Berlin. From there, the cellist debuted in several music halls all over the world, as well as with the European Soloists of Luxembourg at Frankfurt's Alter Oper, and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. She toured Japan as soloist with NHK and the Japan Philharmonic, appeared at the Grand Teton Music Festival in a performance of the Dvorak cello concerto with Eiji Oue, and debuted with the Montreal Symphony in a performance of the Haydn C Major concerto.

In 2009, Warner will release two recordings for the Chicago-based label Cedille, one devoted to works by legendary cellists Popper and Piatigorsky; the other including sonatas by Rachmaninoff and Miaskovsky. Past recordings include Warner's debut recording Hindemith, music for cello and piano (Bridge Records), in which she performed the composer's complete chamber works for cello, and a second disc featuring duos for cello and violin (with Rachel Barton Pine) on Cedille Records.

Most recently released is Warner's critically acclaimed recording of the Barber Concerto with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Naxos Records. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Warner teaches at Roosevelt University and resides in Chicago.

RELATED LINKS

Experience Wendy Warner in concert with the Fresno Philharmonic!
Be sure to catch one of the performances below:

Saturday, March 7 - 8:00pm
Sunday, March 8 - 2:30pm

MEDIA