The word amateur comes through French from the Latin amator: a lover, admirer, or devotee. That doesn’t mean every amateur throughout history was noble, gifted, or motivated only by pure love. But the word was not originally another way…

Programming is not a morality test.

Playing familiar music is not automatically lazy. Playing obscure or contemporary music is not automatically brave. The real question is whether the performer believes in the piece strongly enough to spend the time, money…

As a cellist, I've spent countless hours exploring the works of Romantic-era composers who were also cellists. Their compositions often serve as technical challenges that push the boundaries of left-hand agility, bow control, and musical expression. After years of practice…

Cello playing did not begin with the edition on our stand.

That sounds obvious, but much of modern playing acts as if every fingering and bowing question has to be solved from scratch, usually by the cleanest and safest route…

One of the most useful phrases floating around the music business right now is “blue dot fever.”

It refers to those little blue dots on ticketing maps that show unsold seats. A pop star may have millions of monthly listeners…

At some point, I realized that I have a whole category of arrangements that are not just “put the melody in the cello and call it a day.”

I do plenty of that too, and sometimes that is exactly what…

The real story is not death. It is a fork.

One way to see musical change more clearly is to stop thinking only in large labels like Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, jazz, rock, or pop. Those labels are useful, but…

I don’t know why this doesn’t exist yet, but someone needs to make a prestige biopic about the appraisers from Antiques Roadshow.

Not the antiques. The appraisers.

The people who sit in a convention center, under fluorescent lights, surrounded…

I recently watched a video discussing ten extraordinary historic piano transcriptions. It ranged from Myra Hess’s luminous arrangement of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring to the nearly superhuman virtuosity of Cziffra playing Flight of the Bumblebee, and finally…

Gaspar Cassadó’s Rapsodia del Sur is one of the pieces that makes me wonder why his original music is still so rarely discussed.

It is a substantial recital work: over ten minutes long, 312 measures, and built in several clearly…

Recently I came across a paper I wrote sixteen years ago, during the second year of my doctoral studies. The topic was Dmitri Shostakovich and the political pressures surrounding his symphonic works in the Soviet Union. At the time, it…

When I was about twenty-one, I had an experience with a Bernard Fendt cello that I’ve never entirely forgotten.

At the time, my teacher was helping a middleman broker sell instruments. As I remember it, the story was that the…

Again and again, when a new student begins lessons, I hear some version of the same sentence from parents: “We are not looking for our child to major in music.”

My response, at least inwardly, is always the same: your…

As we plan a program and prepare to walk on stage, our primary responsibility is to serve our audience. A musician without an audience is like a restaurant without customers.

If you have spoken with me for any length of…

Cello ensembles sometimes feel like a modern invention. In recent decades they have become common in conservatories, summer festivals, and professional touring groups. Thousands of arrangements and original works now exist for groups of cellos, ranging from Renaissance transcriptions to…

I recently began preparing a new edition of the B-flat Cello Concerto usually attributed to Michael Haydn. I now have an almost publishable score with critical notes, prepared directly from the surviving manuscript parts.

After studying the source closely, I…

We often speak about “popular music,” “folk music,” and “classical music” as though they belong to completely separate worlds. In reality, the boundaries between them have never been stable. Throughout history, composers have continually drawn on dance traditions, folk materials…

When I was eighteen, I decided to major in cello.

I knew I wanted to be a commuting student, so I chose Wayne State University. I was excited to study with a teacher there and eager to begin what felt…

My first introduction to Servais was an old copy of Souvenir de Spa that I bought when I was around eighteen, I believe at an estate sale.

It is the Peters edition, no. 2236, plate 8345, edited by Friedrich Grützmacher…

Ukraine’s musical heritage offers a rich source of inspiration for performers, composers, and arrangers. For cellists in particular, this repertoire remains surprisingly underexplored. Folk melodies, lyrical salon pieces, sacred chant traditions, and late Romantic compositions from the region all adapt…

The cello world has no shortage of great players.

That is not the problem.

The level of playing today is astonishing. Young cellists can play pieces that would have terrified entire studios a few generations ago. Competitions are full of…

Over the past decade, I’ve noticed a steady increase in pedagogical content circulating in online cello communities. Videos, short lessons, practice tips, technique demonstrations, and teaching philosophies appear daily across platforms. Much of this material is thoughtful, widely shared, and…

Over time, I have noticed how easily we encourage one another to think of jobs as interchangeable, especially when looking from the outside.

Someone loses a position and immediately hears a familiar refrain: Why not just do something adjacent? Surely…

Early in our careers, it is natural to think, “If I were in charge, I would do things differently.”

A first-year music major may feel ready for a major audition. A new faculty member may feel confident about how they…