ERICA WISE | Cello course

Erica Wise. Cellist Erica Wise enjoys a versatile career as a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist, and teacher.

Her love for chamber music began early, initially spending summers at places like the Kinhaven Music School, a music school in Weston, Vermont, and later at festivals such as Tanglewood and Yellow Barn. A founding member of the Dalia Quartet, she also regularly collaborates in duos with pianists Kennedy Moretti and Lluïsa Espigolé. Her numerous chamber music collaborations have always been, and continue to be, a great influence on her life as a cellist.

As the winner of the Nakachimi Cello Competition, she performed Dvorak's Cello Concerto at the Aspen Music Festival with maestro Michael Stern. Among other solo performances, she highlights Walton's Concerto with the NEC Symphony Orchestra at Jordan Hall and with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic under the direction of maestro Keith Lockhart.

Erica Wise has played as principal cellist for conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas and Seiji Ozawa, among others, and has toured with the New World Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She is also an artistic advisor to Da Camera.

Actively engaged with contemporary music of our time, she has offered numerous premieres worldwide and in Spain, both as a soloist and as a founding member of Funktion, a contemporary chamber ensemble based in Barcelona.

At the age of twenty-six, Wise stepped away from music and began a career in medicine. She was accepted into a master's and doctoral program at Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied medicine and immunology research. After four years away from professional music activity, she realized that her true passion was music and returned to playing the cello with renewed dedication.

Erica Wise earned her Bachelor of Music from the Peabody Conservatory and a Master's from the New England Conservatory, graduating with Distinction in Performance. As a Harriet Hale Woolley fellow, she studied baroque cello in Paris with David Simpson. Among her main cello teachers are Ronald Thomas, Colin Carr, Larry Lesser, and Gary Hoffman. She has also received a great influence from the teachings of Ferenc Rados.

She is currently a cello and chamber music professor at the Liceu Conservatory of Music in Barcelona, Spain.