Laura Usiskin, Cello

Biography

Heralded for her "thoughtful, attentive" playing (Alabama Entertainment), Laura Usiskin enjoys a career as soloist and chamber musician. Her playing has taken her to concert halls throughout the United States and Europe, including the Kennedy Center, Palazzo Chigi Saracini (Siena, Italy), Symphony Hall (Boston), and New York venues including Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Barge Music, Steinway Hall, Klavierhaus, and more.

Recent performances include concertos of Dvoràk and Takemitsu with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, performances of the Complete Bach Suites in Los Angeles and New Haven, and a chamber concert with Richard Stoltzman at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. She completed the nationally acclaimed two-year Artist-in-Residence program with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra as well as a one-year fellowship with the Yale Baroque Ensemble. 

In 2011, Ms. Usiskin founded the Montgomery Music Project, an El Sistema strings program for school students. In three years, the program has given intensive string instruction to over 150 underserved children across three counties.

Ms. Usiskin's cello studies began at age five with Gilda Barston of the Music Institute of Chicago and continued with Richard Hirschl of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She graduated from Columbia University cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior and from the Juilliard School with a Master of Music, where she studied with Fred Sherry. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts from Yale University under the tutelage of Aldo Parisot. Ms. Usiskin currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama.