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Students, Faculty + Alumni

MSR Classics releases new CD by Cellist Rhonda Rider

riderYale School of Music graduate Rhonda Rider '80MM, cello, has released a new CD on MSR Classics titled The Grand Canyon Project. The album is a culmination of her Artist-in-Residence position at the Grand Canyon National Park, which she was awarded in 2010. Throughout her time with the park, she performed eleven pieces commissioned especially for her in fifteen concerts across the U.S., in locations as varied as Boston, Dallas, the Wupatki National Monument, and rural upstate New York.

The new CD includes ten new pieces for solo cello, each based on some feature of the National Park. Throughout working on her latest album, Ms. Rider has continued her work as Chair of Chamber Music at The Boston Conservatory and as cello faculty there and at Boston University.

RiderCDA founding member of the Naumburg Award winning Lydian Quartet, with whom she played for over twenty years, Ms. Rider is now a member of the celebrated piano trio Triple Helix. Ms. Rider’s chamber music and solo recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards and cited as Critic's Choice in both the New York Times and Boston Globe. As a chamber musician she has won numerous prizes at Banff, Evian, Fischoff, and Portsmouth Competitions. As a soloist she won the Concert Artists Guild Award as well as an Aaron Copland Recording Grant. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Corcoran Gallery, Wigmore Hall (London), Symphony Space, Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has been a guest artist with the Boston Chamber Music Society, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Chamber Music Series. Dedicated to the performance of new music, Ms. Rider has premiered and recorded works by such renowned composers as John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Yu-Hui Chang, Bright Sheng, and Elliott Carter.

Ms. Rider holds degrees from Oberlin and Yale. Her teachers have included the renowned cellists Aldo Parisot, Zara Nelsova, and Richard Kapuscinski. Her chamber music coaches have included Robert Koff, Simon Goldberg, Raphael Hillyer, and Louis Krasner.