Wendy Warner is one of the world’s leading cellists. She has been hailed by Strings magazine for her “youthful, surging playing, natural stage presence and almost frightening technique.” As cellist Frans Helmerson told The NewYork Times, “She’s unbelievable.” Having garnered international attention by winning first-prize at the Fourth International Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 1990, audiences have since watched Wendy perform on prestigious stages including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Paris’s Salle Pleyel, and Berlin’s Philharmonie.

Warner has collaborated with many leading conductors including Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, André Previn, Jesús López-Cobos, Joel Smirnoff, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Charles Dutoit, Eiji Oue, Neeme Järvi, and Michael Tilson Thomas. In recent seasons, she has performed with many orchestras including the Detroit Symphony, New World Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Warner has also played with the Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Montreal, and San Francisco Symphonies, the Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony (Barbican Center), Berlin Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic, French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Iceland Symphony, L’Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse and L’Orchestre de Paris, with which she performed the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Warner was invited to perform in recital and with orchestra at the 70th birthday celebration concert for Mstislav Rostropovich in Kronberg, Germany and has performed Vivaldi’s two-cello concerto in France with Rostropovich.

A passionate chamber musician, Warner has collaborated with the Vermeer and Fine Arts Quartets, and with violinist Gidon Kremer. Recital work has included performances at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and in Milan and Tokyo.

A frequent recording artist, Warner released a CD of music by cellist composers David Popper and Gregor Piatigorsky in 2009 on Cedille Records. Her past recordings include Hindemith’s complete chamber works for cello for Bridge Records and a disc of 20th century violin and cello duos with Rachel Barton Pine for Cedille Records. Warner’s critically acclaimed CD of Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto, with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, was released by Naxos.

Warner’s musical studies began at age six under the tutelage of Nell Novak, with whom she studied until she joined Mstislav Rostropovich at the Curtis Institute. Her career took an auspicious turn in 1990 when she made her New York debut with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, playing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. She was immediately re-engaged to appear with the NSO on a North American tour and was the featured soloist on the Bamberg Symphony’s European tour that year, also conducted by Rostropovich. She continues to perform and tour internationally.

A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Warner is on the faculty at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, the Music Institute of Chicago, and the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Georgia.

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