Robert Nicholson, Cello
In demand across the United States and Europe, cellist Robert Nicholson has been heard with the London Symphony Orchestra, The Florida Orchestra and served as artist faculty for the Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop in North Carolina. As a founding member, Mr. Nicholson toured with the Langlois String Quartet throughout the United States, Austria, Hungary and England. Having worked with conductors Kurt Masur, Marin Alsop, Pinchas Zukerman and Leon Fleisher, his musicianship was also established through masterclasses with various acclaimed artists including Robert Mann, Pamela Frank and David Kim. He holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Alan Stepansky. A founding member of the Mauthe String Quartet and cellist with the Mansfield Symphony, Mr. Nicholson lives, performs, and teaches in Cleveland.
Cellist Robert Nicholson is in demand as a performer across the United States and Europe. As a member of the Halo Ensemble, an international conductorless chamber orchestra and chamber music collaborative, he has performed at the Crescendo Summer Institute in Hungary, the Helsinki and Uskon Yö Festivals in Finland, and in the United States, and currently serves as the Ensemble’s Assistant Director. A founding member of the Cleveland-based Mauthe String Quartet, formed with the central purpose of engaging and enriching the community, he has premiered multiple new works. In 2008 and 2009 Robert was artist-faculty for the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop. He was also a founding member of the Langois String Quartet, which formed at the MasterWorks Festival in Indiana in 2006. In the summer of 2008, the Quartet was invited to perform in Europe, giving concerts in Austria, Hungary, and England.
Robert has been heard with such orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra, The Florida Orchestra, and the Winter Sun Festival Orchestra, for which he was engaged last-minute to be principal, along with various symphony and chamber orchestras across the U.S.; working with such conductors as Kurt Masur, Marin Alsop, Pinchas Zukerman, and Leon Fleisher. He currently plays in the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra in Ohio, and for the past two years has held an Orchestral Assistantship at the MasterWorks Festival.
A dedicated teacher, Robert holds faculty positions at The Music Settlement and Educator’s Music in Cleveland, OH. With the Mauthe Quartet in Cleveland and the Halo Ensemble abroad, he has given lecture-recitals for students and adults, and frequently teaches, coaches and adjudicates competitions and auditions in the Cleveland area.
Earning his Masters degree from the prestigious Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance at Manhattan School of Music, where he received the Hugo Kortschak award for outstanding achievement in chamber music, Robert also holds a Bachelor's degree from Peabody Conservatory. His teachers included New York Philharmonic former Associate Principal Alan Stepansky, and Florida Orchestra Assistant Principal Lowell Adams. He has performed in master classes for such artists as Robert Mann, Pamela Frank, and David Kim, and studied chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Takács, American, Brentano, and Mendelssohn String Quartets, the Peabody Trio, soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson and baritone John Shirley-Quirk.
A native of Tampa, Florida, Robert now resides in Cleveland, Ohio. In his free time he thoroughly enjoys spending time with friends and family, literature, history, theater, and a lifelong quest for chocolate that you never forget.
