Ashley Sandor Sidon, cellist

Biography

Dr. Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed solo and chamber recitals throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Asia. She holds a D.M.A. from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where her primary teacher was Yehuda Hanani, and is an alumna of the Aspen Music Festival. Dr. Sidon is the Briggs Endowed Professor of Cello at Drake University and prior to this appointment, taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, China.

Dr. Sidon has been an invited performer and clinician internationally, including solo performances in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, British Columbia, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, and France. Nationally, her performances as a chamber musician and as an orchestral soloist have taken her to the leading universities, concert stages, and pre-college music schools from Maine to California. An advocate for new music, Ashley Sidon has commissioned new works by Phillip Koplow, Matthew Quayle, Roger Vogel, and William Dougherty. She has premiered new chamber music and unaccompanied works nationally, including New York City, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Des Moines, and internationally, including Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, and Vancouver.

Dr. Sidon has presented lectures/presentations at professional conferences including College Music Society Southeast Convention, the Music Educator's National Conference (MENC), MENC Southeast Convention, and the Iowa Music Educator’s Conference. Her research document titled, "Lineage and Comparison of Versions of Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne" was published by the Hawaii International Conference on the Arts (2004). Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed under the direction of artists such as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christopher Wilkins. She has appeared with numerous orchestras, including the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Butte Symphony Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Colorado College Music Festival Orchestra, the Florida Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Daytona ISolisti Orchestra, the DaSalo Chamber Orchestra, and the Drake Symphony Orchestra.

A dedicated pedagogue, Ashley Sidon’s students have won numerous concerto competitions and orchestra positions. Competitively selected, they have performed for artists such as members of the Emerson String Quartet, the Tokyo String Quartet, the Miro String Quartet, as well as international soloists like Matt Haimovitz, Wendy Warner, Peter Stumpf, and Joshua Roman. Her students have received scholarships to study at top music festivals and graduate schools and they have won instruments through foundations such as the Carlsen Cello Foundation. Dr. Sidon’s CD, Concert Gems for Violoncello, on the MSR Classics Label has been enthusiastically received by audiences and music reviewers alike. Sidon performs on a 1789 Antonio Gagliano cello and 1801 John Dodd bow.

View Dr. Sidon's Vita here.