Emilio Colón, cellist

Acclaimed as a passionate and virtuosic performer, Emilio is highly sought after as a solo cellist, chamber musician, conductor, composer and pedagogue. An extensive international career takes him throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In 2017, Emilio was named Artist of the Year by the New York Classical Music Society. Notable appearances include soloist with the National Symphony of the Ukraine, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony of Istanbul, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of the current seasons include concerts on tour with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey; soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the National Symphony of Istanbul, the Izmir Symphony Orchestra, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, and guest recitalist at the Nevada Chamber Music Festival, and the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. January and February 2018 marked the third annual festival of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico of which Emilio is the founder and artistic director.

Recently Emilio served as a member of the jury for the prestigious Pablo Casals International Violoncello Competition in Budapest, Hungary. He has also been invited as guest soloist for the Casals Festival, Bozeman Symphony, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Mexico, Texas Festival Orchestra, and San Angelo Symphony Orchestra, Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, Loja Symphony Orchestra, and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra; and Barge Music in New York City; Live Radio Broadcast Recital from the Concertgebouw, Spiegelzaal; performances and appearance on screen for the movie Un Poema a L’Exili “EL PESSEBRE” de Pau Casals y Joan Alavedra which received the Best Picture Award at the REUS International Film Festival in Spain; and featured soloist on tour with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary of the founding by Pablo Casals. He has also been invited as guest conductor and soloist with the Classical Symphony Orchestra of Guatemala, The Texas Festival and Chamber Orchestras, and the Orquesta de Camara Concerto de Puerto Rico.

As a student and later colleague of the distinguished cellist and pedagogue, Janos Starker, Colón earned a master’s degree from the Indiana University School of Music. Colón received a bachelor’s degree as a student of Joaquín Vidaechea, from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, where he won the Pablo Casals Medal upon graduation. Colón had additional studies with Antonio Janigro at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and at the Academia Chigiana in Siena with André Navarra.

An active chamber musician, Emilio performs in many chamber music festivals throughout the world including the Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Mill Valley Chamber Music Society, Tons Voisins in Albi, France, Casals Festival of Puerto Rico, La Musica International Chamber Music Festival, International Festival Institute at Round Top and Mammoth Lakes Music Festival.

Colón played with the Emile Beaux Jeux Piano Trio, which won a grant for two consecutive residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts and a sponsorship from Chamber Music America. Colón was a member of the faculty at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he performed throughout Florida as a member of the string ensemble, Trio Vizcaya. He was also a member of Trio Amadé, the resident ensemble at Florida Atlantic University, and was a Dorothy F. Chandler Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Music at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Emilio is on the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University where at the age of 26, he was appointed as one of the youngest in the history of music schools in the United States. He has since established himself as a leading pedagogue having offered courses at the Paris Conservatoire, the Geneva Conservatoire, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Toho Gakuen in Tokyo, the Hochschüle für Musik in Stuttgart, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has served as Artist-in-Residence at the Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico and is on the faculty as conductor and cellist of the International Festival-Institute in Round Top, Texas, and on the faculty of Mammoth Lakes Music Festival, the Indiana University Summer Music Festival, Miami Music Festival and is co-artistic director of the Cello|Fresno International Cello Festival.

As an international cultural advocate, he has been guest artist at many national and foreign embassies most recently receiving the US Ambassador’s Cultural Diplomacy Award for his work in improving the relations between the US and foreign countries.

Emilio also recently founded the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico whose mission it is to take music to under served areas of the island and to provide world-class training to a select group of Young Professionals.

Emilio is endorsed by D’Addario and performs using their strings on his Amati cello from 1700.