Masterclass
Natasha Farny, cello
American cellist, Natasha Farny studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale College during her undergraduate years. After completing her master's and doctoral degrees at the Eastman School of Music and at the Juilliard School, she received a fellowship at the Leipzig Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." She has been on the School of Music faculty at The State University of New York at Fredonia since 2005.
At 17 and 18, she won three Boston-based concerto competitions with the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1 and the Dvorak Concerto, resulting in performances with both the Boston Symphony and the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Farny was also a concerto winner while studying at Juilliard, where she performed Dutilleux's Tout un Monde Lointain with Robert Spano. More recent performances have included concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Abilene Philharmonic, and the Greeley Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the Longwood (Boston) Symphony, Orchard Park (NY) Symphony, Erie Chamber Orchestra, and the Western New York Chamber Orchestra.
Abroad, Ms. Farny performed at the International Dvorak Society American Spring Festival in the Czech Republic in 2011, and she toured Brazil, giving concerts of two programs in four capital cities in 2013. Nationally, she played for audiences in New York City at the Bargemusic "Here and Now" series, at Chicago public radio "Live from WFMT," Rochester, NY public radio "Live from Hochstein", and at recital series in Rhode Island, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, and Washington State. Ms. Farny was a 2012 winner of the American Composers Forum "Encore Grant." She learned to play the Theremin cello for a project that involved the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her performances with these groups of Edgard Varèse's rarely heard Ecuatorial were held at the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Festival d'Automne (Paris), the Southbank Centre (London), and at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Ms. Farny frequently performs with Chicago pianist, Kuang-Hao Huang and also with the members of her trio, ANA. In residence at Fredonia, the soprano-cello-piano collaboration works actively with living composers. They have performed in Erie, Buffalo, Rochester and Boston, reaching across the disciplines to include visual art and dance.