A Masterclass with Colin Carr, Cellist

Colin Carr appears throughout the world as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. He has played with major orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, the orchestras of Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Montréal and all the major orchestras of Australia and New Zealand. Conductors with whom he has worked include Rattle, Gergiev, Dutoit, Elder, Skrowasczewski and Marriner. He has been a regular guest at the BBC Proms and has twice toured Australia.

With his duo partner Thomas Sauer he has played recitals throughout the United States and Europe including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Wigmore Hall in London. 2016 sees them playing a program of Britten and Adès for both the Chamber Music Societies of New York and Philadelphia. Colin has played complete cycles of the Bach Solo Suites at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Gardner Museum in Boston and in Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa and Vancouver.

As a member of the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio, he recorded and toured extensively for 20 years. Chamber music plays an important role in his musical life. He is a frequent visitor to international chamber music festivals worldwide and has appeared often as a guest with the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets and with New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Recent CD releases include the complete Bach suites on the Wigmore Live label and the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Variations on the MSR Classics label with Thomas Sauer. Colin is the winner of many prestigious international awards, including First Prize in the Naumburg Competition, the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Award, Second Prize in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition and also winner of the Young Concert Artists competition.

He first played the cello at the age of five. Three years later he went to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he studied with Maurice Gendron and later William Pleeth. He was made a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1998, having been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston for 16 years. In 1998, St. John’s College, Oxford created the post of “Musician in Residence” for him, and in September 2002 he became a professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

Colin’s cello was made by Matteo Gofriller in Venice in 1730. He makes his home with his wife Caroline and 3 children, Clifford, Frankie and Anya, in an old house outside Oxford.

Donna Weng Friedman — Award winning pianist Donna Weng Friedman enjoys a varied

career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, curator, producer and app developer. Her

album Heritage and Harmony: Silver Linings, featuring exclusively AAPI/BIPOC artists, was

intended as a response to the wave of violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander

(AAPI) individuals, and aims to promote understanding and tolerance among people of all

backgrounds. Recorded and released during the pandemic, the album was presented with

two Silver Medals at the 2022 Global Music Awards.

In collaboration with WQXR, Donna created and produced Heritage and Harmony, a virtual

concert series in celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Her story was featured on

Asian Americans of New York & New Jersey | WLIW21, a segment of which has been aired

on PBS numerous times.

Donna was awarded a 2022 New York Women Composer’s grant. She is the co- creator and

co-host of HER/MUSIC;HER/STORY with soprano Allison Charney, a mini- series on WQXR

as well as a concert series that shines a light on women composers, past and present. She

was the guest speaker on TEDx Santa Barbara’s series Making Waves: Conversations with

Influencers and Disruptors. Donna is the Artistic Advisor of Ariel Rivka Dance, an all-female

dance company.

Donna was the featured guest artist on the National Women’s History Museum’s series

NWHM Presents: Sundays@Home, honoring women whose activism and talents serve to

inspire others. On March 8th, 2022, she launched a virtual education program in

collaboration with the National Women’s History Museum called Heritage and Harmony: Her

Art, Her Voice, featuring leading female BIPOC role models in the arts who share their

stories of heritage, their challenges and their triumphs, as they seek to inspire and empower

future generations of groundbreaking young women.

Donna has performed in concert halls worldwide, and appeared as soloist with major

symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta, Philadelphia and Shanghai Symphony

Orchestras. She has collaborated with world-class artists including Carter Brey, Anthony

McGill, Elizabeth Mann, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Paul

Neubauer, and Kelly Hall-Tompkins.

The curator of the Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Master Class Series at Princeton University,

she is also a member of Princeton University Music Department’s Advisory Council. Donna is

currently serving as Vice Chair to the Friends of Thirteen Advocacy Board/WNET. She

received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University where she was a University

Scholar and a Master’s of Music Degree from the Juilliard School where she was a winner of

the highly coveted Gina Bachauer Piano Competition as well as the William Petschek full

scholarship award. Donna had the honor and privilege of studying with the great pedagogue

Nadia Boulanger and the inimitable pianist Radu Lupu.