CELLO MELLOW: Stinson returns home for Muttart Hall show tonight

Hailed by The New York Times as a musician with “conviction and flair” and by The New Yorker as an “unusually adept contemporary-music specialist,” reknowned local Cellist Caroline Stinson returns to Edmonton in a performance with pianist Sarah Ho on Sunday, Feb. 27.

The concert at Alberta College’s Muttart Hall, 10050 Macdonald Drive, will also wind up the Main Series portion of the Edmonton Recital Society’s 2010-2011 season. It begins at 7:30 p.m.

Stinson is highly sought worldwide as a leading performer for solo work and with chamber orchestras. The Edmonton native began her studies in cello at the age of four when she studied at the Edmonton chapter of the Talent Education Society and four years later, earned a trip to the Suzuki Conference in Japan. A pupil of fellow Edmontonian Tanya Prochazka (who electrified ERS audiences at a recital last season), Stinson also studied drama at Old School Academic High School. She eventually moved to New York City, where she currently resides.

Outside of Canada, highlights from Stinson’s itinerary include recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, The Museum of Modern Art’s Summergarden Series in New York and Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian in the U.S.

She’s also played many major centres in Europe. Besides live solo outings, Stinson has also released 11 CDs, performs with the contemporary music chamber group LARK Quartet and coordinates the chamber music program at the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University. Her upcoming ERS show with Sarah Ho will be the first of three concerts she will perform in Alberta, the only Canadian dates slated so far in her 2011 itinerary.

Pianist Sarah Ho currently has a position with the piano faculty of the Alberta College Conservatory of Music of Grant MacEwan and is also assistant artistic director with the ERS. Performances on CBC Radio as well as stints with such ensembles as the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra have also solidified her national reputation. Her credentials include training at Yale University and Indiana University in the U.S.

Tickets for the Caroline Stinson and Sarah Ho recital are $30 for adults and $20 for students and seniors and are available at Tix on the Square (780-420-1757) or at the door. For more information, call (780) 264-2844, email at info@edmontonrecital.com or go online at www.edmontonrecital.com.