Biography
BRIEF BIO Kate Dillingham, cellist, currently enjoys an active career both in the United States and abroad. She has performed as soloist with The St. Petersburg Philharmonic, The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, The Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. At home in New York, she appears regularly with orchestras, opera companies, chamber music ensembles, premieres new works, and in Broadway musical productions. Kate has recorded three CDs, which are commercially available through iTunes and Amazon.com: Haydn’s Cello Concertos and music of Claude Debussy, Arthur Honegger and Gabriel Fauré for Connoisseur Society Records, and selected works of Witold Lutoslawski, Victor Herbert, Antonín Dvořák, and contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon. She made her debut in 2002 at Merkin Concert Hall, and has appeared numerous times at Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and Symphony Space in New York, and has been presented twice by invitation at the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Ms. Dillingham is currently Instructor of Cello at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Additionally, she holds the position of cellist and conductor on the faculty of Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. Ms. Dillingham received both a Bachelor (summa cum laude) and a Master of Music from Rutgers University, where she studied with Bernard Greenhouse. She furthered her studies with Maria Tchaikovskaya at the Moscow Conservatory. In 2005, she and Mr. Greenhouse collaborated on an edition of the Sonatas for Violoncello and Keyboard BWV 1027-1029 by J.S. Bach, published by G. Schirmer Inc., which she presented in 2007 in a combined concert and lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ms. Dillingham is highly sought after for her polished and sensitive playing. The press has deemed her “an excellent cellist; dignified, intelligent, and compelling. An adventurous, dedicated champion of contemporary music, she performed with admirable control, conviction, and authority.”
LONG FORM BIO 3-11-2010 Kate Dillingham is a cellist, an educator, and a storyteller. She engages her audiences with a beguiling sense of urgency and dynamism in the sound she creates. Her experiences performing around the globe have led to her development of a provocative series of musical programs centered around architecture, medicine, and the environment. Music and Architecture, Music and Medicine, and Music and the Environment aim to explore the role music plays in our culture by presenting multimedia performances that incorporate images and live music in a theatrical setting. Kate’s recent appointment to the faculty of Lehigh University allows for exploration, development, and incubation of these programs in a institution that values innovation and enterprise. Kate currently enjoys an active career both in the United States and abroad, having performed as soloist with The St. Petersburg Philharmonic, The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, The Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. In New York, she appears regularly with orchestras, opera companies, and chamber music ensembles, premieres new works, and performs in the orchestra for Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway. She has worked with a wide variety of artists including members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus and St. Lukes. In the non-classical field, she has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, with Doc Severinsen, with Tony Bennett on The Art of Romance and Snowfall, with Clark Terry and Jimmy Heath at Jazz at Lincoln Center and with Jane Monheit at Carnegie Hall. She has a particular love for Latin Jazz and the Bossa Nova. Kate has recorded three solo CDs, which are commercially available through iTunes and Amazon.com. Her recording of Debussy’s Clair de lune was used in the recently premiered French film La Rafle, a feature film about the corrupt Vichy government that ordered the arrest of Jews in France during WWII. The film was directed by Roselyn Bosch and stars Academy Award winner Mélanie Laurent and Jean Reno. Following her New York debut in 2002 Kate was immediately engaged to perform on the Accolades series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was invited back to the Met as a soloist with the Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra following a tour through France, Spain, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Kate has made tours as soloist to Russia, Germany, Austria and Romania. At home in the United States, she has appeared numerous times at Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and Symphony Space, and has been presented twice by invitation at the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. A devoted teacher and advocate of introducing young people to the world of music, Kate has recently been named Private Instructor of Cello at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Additionally, she holds the position of cellist and conductor on the faculty of Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She also initiated performances and obtained funding for an outreach program for young string players in the inner city schools in Bridgeport, CT, through the not-for-profit organization Connecticut Alliance for Music. Kate attended Rutgers University on full scholarship, where she received both a Bachelor (summa cum laude) and a Master of Music Performance. Her primary teacher and mentor is Bernard Greenhouse. In 2005, she and Mr. Greenhouse collaborated on an edition of the Sonatas for Violoncello and Keyboard BWV 1027-1029 by J.S. Bach, published by G. Schirmer Inc., which she presented in 2007 in a combined concert and lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also studied with Maria Tchaikovskaya at the Moscow Conservatory following her debut with The Moscow Chamber Orchestra in Tchaikovsky Hall. Kate is highly sought after for her polished and sensitive playing. The press has deemed her “an excellent cellist; dignified, intelligent, and compelling. An adventurous, dedicated champion of contemporary music, she performed with admirable control, conviction, and authority.”
". . . spectacular, exciting, splendid, clean as a whistle! Excellent, superb!" ~ Bernard Greenhouse, world renowned cellist and pedagogue, describing Kate's recording of the Haydn concerti "An informed performance; acrobatic yet always lyrical, giving the music great strength and a chance to breathe . . . excellent job, showing a rich, lush tone, dark and chocolate -- just a beautiful sound . . . . Ms. Dillingham and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra "The Seasons" produce amazing textures, achieving a taut, forward motion and excitement. A sinewy, strong sound, yet with transparency. The best of both worlds: a luscious cello sound contrasting with focused precision and a penetrating tone." "Jennifer Higdon’s Soliloquy is songful and soulful. The solo cello, rich and resonant, is at first surrounded by a string orchestra and emerges and submerges into its melodic contours. Timbres and pitches of the bass occasionally contrast and the string orchestra finds a lovely world of harmonized counterpoint, like a tapestry. Kate Dillingham, solo cellist, is an extraordinary performer who displayed musical insight and emotional depth with this lovely piece.” “A beautiful sound” *****
Past Perfect J.S. Bach composed three stunning Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord (BWV 1027-1029) that have long been performed by cellists and pianists. Often rearranging his compositions for other instruments, Bach had taken BWV 1027 from a work for two flutes and continuo. So it should not be surprising that these three sonatas have become a mainstay of the cello repertoire, even if they can be a bit challenging and unwieldy to play. In the new Schirmer edition, cellist Kate Dillingham provides a very different type of historical version of the sonatas. While Dillingham prepared for her New York recital debut in 2003, she performed a gamba sonata for venerable cellist Bernard Greenhouse, who handed her his ancient copy of the score to study. Greenhouse, who is now 90, had performed these works for his New York debut some 60 years before. At that time, he edited his score in collaboration with his teacher, the cellist and pedagogue Diran Alexanian (1881-1954), who suggested bowing and fingerings. Greenhouse also studied the gamba sonatas with Pablo Casals as well. Realizing that other cellists might find Greenhouse’s solutions to awkward passages interesting and illuminating, Dillingham delivers his findings in the new Schirmer edition. An insight into the performance solutions of famous cellists, past and present, this Greenhouse-Dillingham edition of the Bach gamba sonatas should be most welcome. |