Festival Mozaic is proud to have named cellist Sophie Shao as the Artist-in-Residence for the 2025 Season.
Festival Mozaic's Artist-in-Residence is underwritten by a generous contribution from Libbie Agran.
Cellist Sophie Shao is celebrated for her powerful and eloquent performances. She has premiered works by prominent composers, performed with leading orchestras worldwide, appears at major festivals, and is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at major performance competitions. A dedicated educator, she teaches at the University of Connecticut and frequently presents guest lectures and master classes at other universities and institutions across the country.
As Festival Mozaic's 2025 Artist-in-Residence, Ms. Shao will work closely with Music Director Scott Yoo and Festival staff to curate her own series of performances in San Luis Obispo County throughout the year, and she will be a featured performer at the 2025 San Luis Obispo Summer Music Festival. Her next performance will be a recital with pianist Qing Liang on April 6, 2025, and additional performances and events are still be to be announced.
Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, Ms. Shao is a versatile and passionate artist whose performances the New York Times has described as “eloquent, powerful,” the LA Times noted as “impressive” and the Washington Post called “deeply satisfying.” She has appeared as soloist to critical acclaim throughout the United States and has commissioned Howard Shore’s cello concerto Mythic Gardens, performing the premiere with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, the UK premiere with Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and European premiere with Ludwig Wicki and the 21st Century Orchestra. She also premiered Richard Wilson’s The Cello Has Many Secrets and Shih-Hui Chen’s multimedia concerto Our Son is Not Coming Home to Dinner. Ms. Shao has appeared as soloist throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, with the Houston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, and Pacific Symphony.
Ms. Shao has given recitals in Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Middlebury College, Phillips Collection, University of Notre Dame, Lyric Society of New York, at Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and the complete Bach Suites at Union College. Her dedication to chamber music has conceived her popular “Sophie Shao and Friends” groups and performs in festivals around the country such as Chamber Music Northwest, Vail, Santa Fe, and Festival Mozaic. She has attended the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, and a member of Chamber Music Society Two, a young artist residency of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She is a dedicated music educator, presenting a lecture “Why Bach is Still Relevant in the 21st Century” and recital at the National Gallery of Art, artist-in-residence at the Zeta Charter Schools in the Bronx, masterclasses at University of Michigan, Juilliard, Indiana University, and is on faculty at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches cello, chamber music, and organizes an annual UConn Cello Day. She has previously been on the faculty of Vassar College, Princeton University, and Bard Conservatory.
Ms. Shao’s recordings include the Complete Bach Suites, Andre Previn’s “Reflections” for Cello and English Horn and Orchestra on EMI Classics, Richard Wilson’s Diablerie and Brash Attacks and Barbara White’s My Barn Having Burned to the Ground, I Can Now See the Moon on Albany Records, Howard Shore’s original score for the movie The Betrayal on Howe Records, Marlboro Music Festival’s 50th Anniversary on Bridge Records, Herschel Garfein’s The Layers on Asic Records, and Howard Shore’s Mythic Gardens on Sony Classical. Her new solo album, CanCan Macabre, has just been released on Centaur Records.
A native of Houston, Texas, Ms. Shao began playing the cello at age six, and studied with Shirley Trepel, the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. At age thirteen she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying cello with David Soyer and chamber music with Felix Galimir. After graduating from the Curtis Institute, she continued her cello studies with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, receiving a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale College and an M.M. from the Yale School of Music, where she was enrolled as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. She plays on an Honore Derazey cello ca. 1855, formerly owned by Pablo Casals.
Learn more about Sophie at sophieshao.com.