Saturday, April 1 at 1:00 pm in Bein & Fushi’s Great Room at 410 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL
Admission is Free. Space is limited. Please RSVP: mail@beinfushi.com or 312-663-0150
Ilya Finkelshteyn, principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony, has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Highly acclaimed for his performances, Finkelshteyn was recently praised in the Washington Post as a “complete master of his instrument.” Finkelshteyn has been featured as soloist with the Cincinnati, Baltimore St. Louis, and Detroit symphony orchestras, Mostly Mozart and Peninsula festival orchestras, National Repertory Orchestra, and Bardy Symphony Orchestra (England). An active chamber musician, Finkelshteyn has collaborated with András Schiff, Hilary Hahn, David Soyer, Richard Goode, Joseph Silverstein, Steven Ansell, Harold Robinson, Vadim Repin, Isidore Cohen, and Lydia Artymiw. He has been featured at the Aspen, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Innsbrook, Bay Chamber and Peninsula music festivals, Linton Music Series and Jupiter Players in New York. Finkelshteyn has been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio, Maine Public Radio, KFUO-FM in St. Louis, WYPR in Baltimore, WGUC in Cincinnati and has recorded on the Sony Label.
While Finkelshteyn maintains a busy private teaching studio and presents frequent public master classes at major conservatories including the Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, Indiana University, and University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). He has also been on the faculties of the Jonannesen International School of the Arts, National Orchestral Institute, and the Orchestra Academy at Indiana University. In January 2012, Finkelshteyn was appointed to the faculty of CCM where he teaches applied cello lessons and designed a new orchestral repertoire audition course for cello.
Finkelshteyn was born in Leningrad and began his musical training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory Special Music School under the tutelage of Sergei Chernyadiev. Once he immigrated to the United States, he studied with Tanya Remenikova at the University of Minnesota and attended The Juilliard School for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a full scholarship student of Harvey Shapiro. His chamber music coaches include Felix Galimir, Samuel Sanders, and members of the Juilliard String Quartet.
He has been awarded top prizes at the Concertino Praga, Russian Cello Competition, the WAMSO International Competition, the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition (where he was the recipient of a Fellowship), Chautauqua Concerto Competition, and Juilliard Concerto Competition, Finkelshteyn performed as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra on tours of France and Bermuda.
The cellist won his first orchestra position with the St. Louis Symphony prior to his graduation from Juilliard and was a member for five seasons under the late conductor Hans Vonk. From 2002-2009 he performed as principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Yuri Temirkanov, and became principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 2009, where he holds the Irene & John J. Emery Chair. Finkelshteyn performs on a cello by Giovanni Grancino, c. 1700.