B i o g r a p h y
Acclaimed as a "terrific cello soloist" and as having a "big, generous tone," American cellist Natasha Farny performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician. Her debut CD of French music for cello and piano with Jitka Fowler Frankova was released on the Centaur label in 2020. In 2018, she joined forces with pianist Eliran Avni to perform as the Ekstasis Duo. The duo has produced a new CD called "Women's Voices" set for release in October 2022. Recent concerts have taken the duo to Arizona's Del E. Webb Performing Arts Center, New York's Merkin Hall, and Colorado's Strings Music Festival. In 2022-2023, the duo will premiere Avner Dorman's new Double Concerto for Cello, Piano, and Orchestra, and give recitals at Grand Valley State University (MI), Buffalo's Friends of Vienna, and the Arts in the Village (MA) series.
Ms. Farny made her concerto debut at age 17 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale College during her undergraduate years. After completing her master’s and doctoral degrees at the Eastman School of Music and at the Juilliard School, she received a fellowship for study in Leipzig, Germany. While studying at Juilliard, Ms. Farny won two concerto competitions, performing Dutilleux’s Tout un Monde Lointain with conductor Robert Spano and Olav Anton Thommessen’s world premiere, Through Reflection with conductor Joel Sachs. More recent performances have included concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Abilene Philharmonic, and the Greeley Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the Longwood (Boston) Symphony, Orchard Park (NY) Symphony, National Music Festival Orchestra, Pennsylvania Sinfonia, Schenectady Symphony, Erie Chamber Orchestra, and the Western New York Chamber Orchestra.
Abroad, Ms. Farny performed at the International Dvorak Society American Spring Festival in the Czech Republic with Jitka Frankova in 2011. In 2013, she made a tour of Brazil, giving concerts in four capital cities, and returned in August 2016 as a clinician and performer. She performed on the Theremin cello in 2009-2010 for a project of the complete works of Edgard Varèse, alongside the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her performances with these groups of Varèse’s rarely heard Ecuatorial were held at the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Festival d’Automne (Paris), the Southbank Centre (London), and at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Nationally, she has played for audiences in New York City at the Bargemusic “Here and Now” series, at Chicago public radio “Live from WFMT”, Rochester, NY public radio “Live from Hochstein”, and at numerous recital series across the nation. Ms. Farny is also active as a new music performer and has been recognized with an “Encore Grant” in 2012 from the American Composers Forum. Ms. Farny’s two residencies at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in 2017 resulted in performances with her new music duo, Amistella, and her French cello music CD project.
Ms. Farny is Professor of Cello at the School of Music at the State University of New York in Fredonia. She oversees the Fredonia cello choir and coordinates the string chamber music program. She has been honored there with several awards, including grants from the Faculty Student Association and the United University Professions, as well as the Hagan Young Scholar Artist Award and the Kasling Memorial Lecture Award. She has been appointed to the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, the Brancaleoni International Music Festival, and the Fredonia String Camp and as well as festivals in Chestertown, MD, Boulder, CO, Anchorage, AK, and Sweden, ME.
