Wendy Sutter, cello

"Ms. Sutter... in her career and her person, embodies grace and a knack for doing the unexpected." —the Wall Street Journal

Cellist Wendy Sutter, well known as a champion of new music and acclaimed by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, NY Times, San Francisco Chronicle, enjoys a career as an international touring soloist of major works from leading composers including premieres of Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Concerto and the American premiere of Philip Glass’ Cello Concerto.  

After studying at the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School, she came to professional prominence at 16 as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony under the baton of Rachel Wharton. In 1990, Sutter won the Juilliard Cello Competition premiering a cello concerto by American composer David Diamond and conducted by Gerard Schwarz at Avery Fisher Hall, soon after making debuts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center.  

Spurred by new possibilities of music, in 1994 she accepted an invitation from Mikhail Baryshnikov to premiere a dance/cello duet titled A Suite of Dances set to movements from Bach’s solo cello suites and choreographed by the legendary Jerome Robbins. She continued to perform and tour this work while touring internationally with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe. She has also appeared at festivals including Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Lincoln Center, Evian, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Seattle International Chamber Music Series, Aspen and Tanglewood.  

In 2000 Sutter began an association with the new music icons Bang on a Can “All-Stars,” which provided a vehicle for her to promote new music, complementing her established career performing classical masterpieces. She has toured and recorded extensively with the “All Stars” and collaborated with some of the most prominent living composers, giving innumerable premieres including appearing as soloist with composer/conductor Tan Dun and the Shanghai Symphony, performing both his cello concertos, The Map and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonas cello soloist in Water Passion.   

Accompanied by her gorgeous 1620 Amati cello, Sutter premiered the Philip Glass Cello Concerto in 2007, gave the world premiere of Glass’s first work for solo cello–Songs and Poems for Cello–composed especially for Sutter, for which she has been subject to unanimous praise.  In describing Sutter’s performance, the Wall Street Journal soliloquized: “Sutter (played) from her heart, or from her blood, sometimes rushing breathlessly, and sometimes holding back. The landscape isn't built from many notes – it might seem simple – but it's strengthened with urgent and unshakable conviction.”  

Since 2007, Sutter has also been soloist in the Glass song-cycle Book of Longing, based on the poetry and artwork of Leonard Cohen, which was bowed at Toronto’s Luminato Festival, Spoleto Festival, the Ravinia Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, London’s Barbican, and continued to perform this work internationally in Australia, Italy, New Zealand through the following two seasons.