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David Cole, cello
David Cole is an artist dedicated to sustaining the wonderful live concert experience that musicians have passed down over the centuries. Realizing the delicate balance between emotion and form, while adhering to the intentions of the composer, David creates an extraordinary concert experience.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he has been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony in Washington, the Symphony of Nice, France, the Solisti L'Aquilani at Carnegie Hall, and more than 75 solo performances with the Abruzzo Symphany in Italy. He was awarded a Martha Baird Rockefeller grant after performing at Carnegie Hall.
David and violinist wife Carol Cole lived for over ten years in Europe where they toured extensively as soloists and as members of chamber groups and symphony orchestras. During those years David performed with the La Scala orchestra in Milan and the Rai orchestra of Turin. He was principle cellist of the Abruzzo Symphony and taught cello and chamber music in the Istituzione Sinfonica d'Abruzzo in L'Aquila, nurturing a generation of fine cellists including Stefano Viggetti of the famed baroque chamber orchestra, "Ensemble Chordia” .
David is a forth generation musician. His great grandfather and grandfather were violinists, and his father, Orlando, was famed cellist of the Curtis String Quartet and teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music for over 50 years. David began cello study at the age of four with Metta Watts, continuing with his father at Curtis when he was 14. He also studied with Leonard Rose at Curtis and the Meadow Mount Summer School, and with Zara Nelsova at the Aspen Festival before graduating from the Curtis Institute in 1967. He participated in the Pablo Casals master classes during summers at the Marlboro Festival, and was chosen to play for Pablo Casals on a “Bell Telephone Hour” special as part of a television documentary about Marlboro. There he performed and recorded with the orchestra conducted by Casals. There also he performed and recorded trios with Rudolf Serkin and Pina Carmirelli. As well as Marlboro, David participated in a "Jeuness Musical" in Yugoslavia and in the Aspen and Tannglewood summer festivals.
Cole's musical experience includes playing as a member of many orchestras including La Scala in Milan, the Turin Radio Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony, and, as principle cellist, with the New Jersey Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic, the Abruzzo Symphony, the Bethlehem Bach Festival Orchestra, the Solisti L'Aquilani, the Wilmington Symphony (now the Delaware Symphony), the Florida Grand Opera, and Pennsylvania Ballet orchestra.
David's love for classical music and his belief in its power as a living art form, have inspired him not only to strive for the highest standards in cello playing, but to devote himself to passing on the knowledge handed down to him by great artists of the past.
As a teacher, David began as a teenager at the school his father founded, the New School of Music in Philadelphia. Since 1990 he has lived in South Florida, teaching at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, and at Indiana University's summer String Academy. He is now professor of cello and chamber music and head of the string department at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida. At Lynn, undergraduate and Masters students have come to study with David from among others, the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute, and the Peabody Institute as well as from the countries of Brazil, Romania, Uzbekistan, Korea, Russia, Lithuania, Cuba, Canada, Venezuela, and Germany His many students, including Jonah Kim, Jillian Bloom, and Alex Cox, have gone on to professional careers and further studies at the Juilliard School of Music, the Cleveland Institute, the New England Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, to name a few.
Presently,David is cellist of the Cole-Robertson Piano Trio and the Cole Duo with violinist wife Carol Tomlinson Cole and pianist Dr. Jon Robertson. This past year 2013-2014 the Trio performed Beethoven’s triple concerto with the Lynn Philharmonia, John Nelson, conductor, and the Cole Duo performed Brahms Concerto for Violin and Cello also at Lynn with conductor, Guillermo Figueroa.