Elaine Kreston, Cellist
Originally from Chicago, Elaine Kreston currently splits her time between New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. An active chamber musician, she performs regularly in New York City's Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, the Kosciuszko Foundation and Steinway Hall, in addition to other venues. Ms. Kreston has been featured several times on local and national NPR Stations. The variety of performing she enjoys also took her to Broadway this year, where she gave solo performances in Matthew Bourne's new interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Because of her strong interest in education, Elaine has participated several in-school residencies throughout the country, allowing students the opportunity to experience live performance in their own envir onment and receive coaching from professional musicians while encouraging personal interaction with the performers.

As concerto soloist, Ms. Kreston's appearances include London, England, and Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Ms. Kreston spent her 1997 season in Europe where she was an artist with the European Mozart Foundation based in Poland, which sponsored performances throughout Europe.

As recitalist and chamber musician she has appeared at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Music in the Loft Series, the Chicago Three Arts Club, and the Harold Washington Library. Her Boston appearances include Jordan Hall, the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum and Harvard University's New Music Series. Elaine was a featured artist in Wisconsin's Green Lake Music Festival and has performed throughout San Antonio and South Texas as a member of the Carnelian String Quartet and the River City Consort in addition to her appearances at Austin's Intimate Concert Series and the Austin Chamber Music Center.

The Program

This concert program is based on two different suites of dances for solo cello. Bach’s Suites are among the best known and well loved of the solo cello repertoire. Recently, they have gained popularity through Yo-Yo Ma’s re-release of the six suites in collaboration with architects, skaters, and, as you might suspect, dancers -- in video form.  It was the cellist Pablo Casals who originally brought them to life when he rediscovered the suites in the late 1800s and recognized them as concert music (his predecessors had been playing them only as studies). Casals’ student and fellow Spaniard, Gaspar Cassadó, wrote the other dance suite on the program. A suite of Spanish dances, they suit the cello superbly due to the composer’s own mastery of the instrument. The program included some surprises in collaboration with Hillside Concert Series’ creator and pianist, Bob Cowart. Namely, a Chopin piano nocturne adapted for cello and piano, and an Arioso by JS Bach.