Matthew Zalkind

Program

An active recitalist and chamber musician, talented cellist Matthew Zalkind also regularly performs as a soloist, and his Phillips debut includes three masterpieces for solo cello by Bach, Ligeti, and Kodály.

György Ligeti (1923–2006)
Sonata for Solo Cello

About the Artist

Praised for his “impressive refinement, eloquent phrasing, and singing tone” by The New York Times, American cellist Matthew Zalkind has performed throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician.

Zalkind was awarded First Prize in the 2012 Washington International Competition, as well as top prizes in the Beijing International Cello Competition, Korea’s Isang Yun Gyeongnam International Competition, and the Juilliard School Competition. He also won distinction as the top-ranked American in the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

As a soloist, Zalkind has performed concerti with such organizations as the Moscow Chamber Players, the Albany Symphony, the Hongzhou Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Tongyeong International Music Festival Orchestra, and the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra in Santa Barbara. As soloist with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra he performed in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall under the baton of Ludovic Morlot.

An active chamber musician, Zalkind has participated in numerous music festivals, including Marlboro and Ravinia. He has collaborated in chamber music with Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, Charles Neidich, Bruno Canino, Scott St. John, Jonathan Biss, and members of the Guarneri String Quartet. In addition, Zalkind has performed at the Kennedy Center and in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a current member of the internationally acclaimed Harlem String Quartet.

Zalkind has a strong interest in teaching and outreach. In addition to teaching as a graduate student instructor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, he was assistant faculty for two summers at the Meadowmount School of Music in New York. Zalkind was awarded a Gluck Community Service Fellowship at The Juilliard School for four years, performing concerts at treatment facilities throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Zalkind also served as guest professor at Utah State University from September/December, 2012.

A Salt Lake City native, Zalkind began his studies with Richard Hoyt. He has worked extensively with Pegsoon Whang, Hans Jensen, Ronald Leonard, and Alan Stepansky. Zalkind was accepted to The Juilliard School with presidential distinction in 2004 as a student of Timothy Eddy. He received his bachelors degree from Juilliard in 2008, and his masters degree 2010 as the recipient of Juilliard’s Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship and the Rena Robbins Shapiro Memorial Scholarship in Cello. Zalkind received his doctorate of musical arts from the University of Michigan in 2013 under the tutelage of Richard Aaron.

Watch & Listen

Matthew Zalkind performs the first part of Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston.