Cellist Anne Suda performs throughout the United States and abroad as an accomplished soloist and chamber musician. As recent solo winner of the Frances Walton Competition, Anne toured the Seattle area giving recitals and outreach presentations. Anne's recent concert highlights include bicoastal performances of the Beethoven Triple Concerto (with One Found Sound Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco and with the Venice Symphony under the baton of Maestro Imre Palló), the Moeran Concerto, and performances at Yale’s Norfolk Festival. Anne also performed and led master classes as guest artist of the Cellobration Festival in St. Louis.
Anne performs on prominent LA concert series including Dilijan Chamber Series at Colburn’s Zipper Hall, “Sundays Live” at LACMA’s Bing Theater, Brand Library Plaza Series, Hammer Museum series “In Real Life: Performance” at the Billy Wilder Theater, L'Ermitage Foundation Concert Series at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, Fowler Museum series “Fowler Out Loud.” From Walt Disney Hall to Schoenberg Hall to ArtShare, Anne loves performing in LA by bringing chamber music to as many Angelinos as possible!
Inspired and encouraged by San Francisco mentors Jennifer Culp (Kronos Quartet) and Sandy Wilson (Alexander String Quartet), Anne's intensive chamber music initiatives began by cultivating a spirit of collaborative sensitivity that remains at the heart her performance values. From this foundation Anne established two award-winning ensembles, leading to concert tours throughout France and the US (where her ensemble Aleron Trio "focused in on every detail, never missing out on any tricks, allowing the rest of us to sit back and enjoy every bit of the fun as they by respected the composer’s every demand” with “dexterity and breathtaking perfection”), residencies at the Banff Centre in Canada, Britten-Pears at Aldeburgh Music in the UK, the Old First Chamber Series in San Francisco, and symphonies and universities throughout the US.
Aleron Trio has also performed internationally in England as a resident ensemble at Britten-Pears Aldeburgh Music Festival, in Canada at the Banff Chamber Music Residency, and in Barcelona. During the 2014-2015 season the trio served as Ensemble-in-Residence for the Old First Concert Series and won the Barbara Fritz Chamber Music Award presented by the Berkeley Piano Club. Aleron Trio also served as resident ensemble with the Southeast Iowa Symphony, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto several times and giving 17 school and community outreach presentations.
Anne has been honored to represent UCLA throughout Los Angeles performing with the school’s ensemble-in-residence, VEM String Quartet. She is also thrilled to be a member of dynamic audience-inspiring ensemble Los Angeles Cello Quartet. Praised by the LA Times as “Hot and Intense,” Anne loves her duo partnership with LACQ founder Ruslan Biryukov. As featured Live on Stage artists, Ruslan and Anne’s in-demand Cellisimo duo recently added a 12-state tour to their 2018-2019 calendars.
As a soloist, Anne has performed with symphony orchestras including the Sonoma County Philharmonic, the UCLA Symphony, the Knox-Galesburg Symphony, the Quincy Symphony, and the Southeast Iowa Symphony. Classical Sonoma wrote of Anne’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, “The delightful top-to-bottom slides on the fingerboard were impeccable, and in the cadenza Ms. Suda never hurried, letting the long pauses add suspense to the music. She clearly identified with the subtle and non-heroic interplay of cello and orchestra.” Also praised for bringing a fresh and contemporary sound to both her recital repertoire, the Northwest Reverb wrote of her interpretation of the Debussy Cello Sonata, “Cellist Anne Suda read so much contrast into the score, intermittently I felt I wasn't hearing Debussy at all, but discovering his lost contemporary genius. It was the freshest interpretation I’ve heard.”
Mentored by faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory including Axel Strauss, Jennifer Culp, Paul Hersh, Mack McCray, and Mark Sokol, Aleron Trio also served as teaching assistants to mentors in the Alexander String Quartet (ensemble in-residence at SF State University), leading master classes while the quartet toured, as well as coaching advanced chamber ensembles from the Crowden School in Berkeley. Additionally, Aleron Trio has coached extensively with members of the Juilliard String Quartet, Brentano String Quartet, Pavel Haas Quartet, Tokyo Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet (resident ensemble at Stanford), and with pianists Robert McDonald, Klára Würtz, and Pedja Muzijevic.
Known for performing Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire throughout the country, Anne’s SF-based contemporary chamber music ensemble Nonsemble 6 took off after performing at the Kennedy Center and receiving a grant from the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music for project funding. Working with Opera Parallèle Stage Director Brian Staufenbiel, Nonsemble 6 created an innovative memorized and staged production with costumes commissioned from renowned corsetiere Autumn Adamme. This project gave Anne the unique and invaluable opportunity to blur the lines of musical and dramatic performance as an instrumentalist, providing infinite expressive possibilities and potential for artistic growth.
Nonsemble 6 performed Pierrot lunaire as resident artists at the Astoria Music Festival, along with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) with San Francisco Ballet Concertmaster Roy Malan and members of the Oregon Symphony, and multiple performances of a chamber orchestration of Berg’s opera Wozzeck. Chosen by San Francisco’s Noe Valley Chamber Music as Emerging Artists of the Year, Nonsemble 6 gave a featured performance on the series. As authorities on Second Viennese School chamber music performance in modern contexts, the group has performed and lectured at universities and colleges including Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz, Willamette University, San Francisco Conservatory (invited to perform as featured alumni), SF State University, Western Illinois University, Monmouth College, Augustana College, and Knox College.
A dedicated educator, Anne has been honored to adjudicate for competitions at the Senior String division MTNA competition, held at the University of California Santa Barbara, and at the Redlands Bowl Concerto Competition at University of Redlands. Anne has served on the faculty of SF Community Music Center (helping to fulfill the school’s mission of bringing music to all), on the faculty of Northern California Music, Art, and Culture Center. Anne’s diverse group of private students range from children to UCLA undergraduates to retirees.
Currently studying at UCLA for her Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree with Grammy-Award winning UCLA Professor Antonio Lysy, Anne’s cello life started at age four with her mother and first teacher, Carolyn Suda. Anne received her Bachelor of Music degree from Vanderbilt University (with a double major in English Literature), studied abroad at the Sydney Conservatorium (serving as principal cellist of the chamber orchestra), and her Master of Music degree and a Professional Diploma from the San Francisco Conservatory.