Meet our Musicians: Katie McCarthy, Cello
Katie McCarthy is an active performer, educator, and arts advocate based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. As a multifaceted musical artist, you can find Ms. McCarthy in a range of spaces: performing with orchestras, chamber ensembles, recital series, solo performances, giving special attention to interpreting and performing the works of historically underrepresented composers, and participating in and leading community music activities and workshops. Ms. McCarthy's work as an educator is rooted in her passion for community engagement in the arts, learning and acting on the ways musicians can impact, engage, and learn from their surrounding communities. She maintains an active studio of dedicated cello students, ranging from beginners, to advanced high schoolers, to adult learners. She was a faculty member for the Arts Ahimsa music festival in Lenox, MA, where she coached amateur adult musicians in a variety of chamber music and performed alongside them in concert.
Ms. McCarthy serves as a cello section member for both the Mid Atlantic Symphony Orchestra and the Great Falls Philharmonic. She also regularly has the pleasure of substituting with local ensembles, including the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Annapolis Chamber Orchestra. Some of the venues where Ms. McCarthy has performed include the Kennedy Center, Millennium Stage, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Maryland Hall, the Arts Club of Washington, as well as many staple local locations, such as the Greenbelt Community Center, the Greenbelt Farmers Market, local churches, retirement homes, and outdoor parks throughout Prince George’s County, MD. A lover of opera, Katie performed in the Alexandria, VA based residency for Prague Summer Nights for imaginative productions of "The Marriage of Figaro," as well as a variety of opera productions at the University of Maryland.
Ms. McCarthy is passionate about new music and highlighting the music of underrepresented composers and composers outside the standard classical canon. Her most recent solo recital featured works by Jessie Montgomery and Maria Newman. In past recitals, she has performed works by Tania Léon, Caroline Ahn, Nadia Boulanger and many others. In 2018, she collaborated with the modern music collective wild Up in a concert at the ArtHouse in downtown College Park, MD. Throughout her time as a student at the University of Maryland, she has performed with the TEMPO ensemble, working with composers to premiere new works.
During her studies, she was also selected to play in masterclasses given by Hai-Ye Ni of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Astrid Schween of the Juilliard Quartet, and chamber masterclasses with members of the Shanghai Quartet. In 2019, she was selected to play with the Mass Cello Ensemble, part of the Piatigorsky Cello Festival, at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. She received funding on behalf of the University of Maryland to represent the School of Music at this prestigious conference and performance.
Ms. McCarthy holds a M.M. in Cello Performance and B.M. in Cello Performance from UMD. Go Terps!
You can learn more about Ms. McCarthy at her website: mccarthycello.com