WENDY WARNER • A Cello Bow by François Xavier Tourte, Paris, "De Lamare"

Photo:Tetsuro Takai

Wendy Warner, hailed by Strings magazine for her  “youthful, surging playing, natural stage presence and almost frightening technique, “has become one of today’s foremost cellists. 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.

The cellist has collaborated with leading conductors including Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Joel Smirnoff, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Charles Dutoit, Eiji Oue, Neeme Järvi, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has recently performed with the Santa Barbara, Detroit, Colorado and New World symphonies, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, St. Petersburg and Calgary philharmonics, and Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec.

Additional performances in the U.S. 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), Hong Kong Philharmonic, French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra,  Iceland Symphony, and L'Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse. She has performed the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and L'Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Semyon Bychkov.

A few of the cellist’s 2010 engagements include performances on the Jupiter Chamber Players Series in New York, an all Chopin program with Inna Faliks, piano, and Ilya Kaler, violin, as part of the Piano Forte Series in Chicago, the Boston Artists Ensemble Chamber Music Series with members of the Boston Symphony, the Dvorák Cello Concerto with the Evanston Symphony, Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ with members of the Vermeer String Quartet in Chicago, a recital with Marta Aznavoorian at the Music Institute of Chicago, the Cape Cod Symphony with Jun-Ho Pak, conductor, and a benefit recital for the Suzuki Orff School in Chicago.

Warner’s 2008-2009 engagements included the Anchorage Symphony in its season opening concert performing Prokofiev's Symphonie Concertante, 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, Fine Arts Quartet, and violinist Gidon Kremer. Recital work includes performances at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall, Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, 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. She then studied with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Curtis Institute. An accomplished pianist as well, Warner studied with Emilio del Rosario at The Music Institute of Chicago. She made her debut in New  York with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich in October 1990 playing the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1. Immediately following she was reengaged to appear with the orchestra on a North American tour in 1991. The cellist was also the featured soloist on the 1991 European tour of the Bamberg Symphony, again conducted by Rostropovich, and made her debuts in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Köln, Dusseldorf, and Berlin. She has also performed with the European Soloists of Luxembourg at Frankfurt's Alter Oper and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. Warner toured Japan as a soloist with NHK and the Japan Philharmonic, appeared at the Grand Teton Music Festival in a performance of the Dvórak cello concerto with Eiji Oue, and debuted with the Montreal Symphony in a performance of the Haydn C Major concerto.

Warner has recently released her first recording for the Chicago-based label Cedille devoted to works by the legendary cellists Popper and Piatigorsky. Two releases on Cedille are planned for 2010: an all Russian CD featuring music by Rachmaninov and Miakovsky and a disk of Beethoven Trios. Past recordings include Warner’s debut disc featuring music by Hindemith on 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. Warner also made a critically acclaimed recording of the Barber Concerto with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for Naxos Records.