Bio

“Charismatic” (NYTimes), “alluring and gutsy” (TimeOutNY) cellist, Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir is a soloist, chamber musician, teaching artist and classical music advocate. A top laureate of the Naumburg International Violoncello Competition in New York City and the Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition in Zagreb, Croatia, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, as well as in Japan, India and Colombia, with orchestras such as the Iceland Symphony, Silesian Philharmonic and the Des Moines Symphony. Recently, she was nominated for an Icelandic Music Award for “Musician of the Year 2011” and received the Rachel Barton Pine Career Grant.

An avid chamber musician, An avid chamber musician, Saeunn has collaborated in performance with Itzhak Perlman, Mitsuko Uchida, and the Cavani Quartet and regularly performs in venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She has participated in numerous chamber music festivals, including Sarasota, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove and the Marlboro Music Festivals with whom she recently toured the east coast.

She is a member of Ensemble ACJW and a graduate of The Academy, a collaboration of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education, performing chamber music at Carnegie Hall and bringing classical music to students in the New York City Public Schools. As an outgrowth of her work in The Academy, she and her colleagues have formed a new ensemble, The Declassfied, a collective that seeks to revitalize the world of chamber music through revelatory concert experiences, creative education, and community engagement.

An advocate of new music, Saeunn has premiered dozens of works, including most recently, commissioned works for cello by Daníel Bjarnason, Nicholas Csicsko and Kendall Briggs. She performs new music frequently in venues in New York City such as The Stone and Le Poisson Rouge. Along with the masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, Saeunn is constantly inspired by works composed in our time.

Saeunn received a Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music with the highest honors for accomplishments in both cello and chamber music, the Ellis A. Feiman Memorial Award in Cello and the Bennett Levine Memorial Award in Chamber Music. She continued her studies at The Juilliard School and completed a Master of Music. Her principal teachers include Richard Aaron, Tanya Carey and Joel Krosnick.

Born in Reykjavik, Iceland, Saeunn now lives in New York City. She plays on a cello made in Milan, Italy circa 1800.