29 Apr Nicholas Finch
Since performing as a concerto soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age 18, cellist Nicholas Finch has established himself as an artist of great depth and diversity, both within and beyond the classical genre. This season, Finch will lead the second year of the Derby City Chamber Music Festival as its Artistic Director, featuring some of the best chamber musicians from Louisville and around the country, including members of the Escher String Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and many more. This year Finch recorded his debut album “Nou Edition” with the NouLou Chamber Players, featuring three world-premiere cello concertos written for him by composers Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, Alyssa Weinberg, and Dorian Wallace, to be released in the spring of 2024. He served as a secondary soloist with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Teddy Abrams’ ‘Mammoth’, and performed by the Louisville Orchestra in Mammoth Cave National Park, and performed the American premiere of Kelly-Marie Murphy’s concerto for cello and harp with the Skagit Symphony in Mt. Vernon, Washington. He served as cello artist-faculty at the Eastern Music Festival in the Summer of 2022, and will return in this role the summer of 2023.
In recent seasons, Finch has collaborated with musicians from the Louisville Orchestra and others in the role of conductor, in works by Copland, Glinka, Saint-Saens, Elgar, Dvorak, and more. Just months prior to the onset of COVID-19, he appeared as cello soloist in Richard Strauss’s “Don Quixote” with the Louisville Orchestra.
Finch was appointed Principal Cellist of the Louisville Orchestra during the 2013-2014 season by music director Teddy Abrams. He has appeared with the Boston-based chamber orchestra ‘A Far Cry’ on numerous concerts and recordings, one recording having been nominated for a Grammy Award. He has additionally appeared numerous times with the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City.
A native of Boston, Finch began his cello studies at the age of 12. He attended Harvard, Juilliard, the University of Michigan, and the Mannes College of Music, studying the cello with Andrew Mark, David Soyer, Harvey Shapiro, Richard Aaron, and Marcy Rosen. He has studied orchestral conducting with Markand Thakar, Kenneth Kiesler, and with Michael Jinbo and Ludovic Morlot at the Pierre Monteux School. During the 2023-24 season, Finch will attend the University of Michigan again, this time to earn a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting.
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