Sterling Elliott
Tuesday, January 26 @ 7 PM
Sonata in Dialogue
Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition.
Still in his mid-twenties, Elliott has appeared with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Dallas Symphony, working with noted conductors including Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffrey Kahane, and Mei Ann Chen, among others.
In 2025/2026 Sterling Elliott debuts with the Phoenix Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony, and at the BBC Proms with Edwin Outwater. As featured soloist with the Sphinx Virtuosi, he takes part in a mutli-city tour with performances at Carnegie Hall, Shriver Concert Series, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Gardner Museum, and Schubert Club and more. As a chamber musician, he continues his residency in the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, appearing with CMLSC at Alice Tully Hall and on tour throughout the United States, as well as in trio performances with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien.
Recent highlights include debut performances with the Atlanta, San Francisco, New Jersey, Columbus, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids Symphonies, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Reno Philharmonic. Elliott has also made returns to Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s led by Louis Langrée, and performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Madison Symphony alongside Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham. He premiered a new orchestral version of John Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria, commissioned for him by a consortium of orchestras, led by the Orlando Philharmonic and music director Eric Jacobsen.
Praised for his “power, speed and finesse of artists twice his age” (Tribune Star), Elliot Wuu has captured audiences with colorful tones, sensitive musicality and emotional depth in his music. Wuu, a Young Steinway Artist, was named a 2018 Gilmore Young Artist, one of the most prestigious awards bestowed every two years to two young pianists up to 22 years old. Wuu is a winner of the Salon de Virtuosi 2021 Career Grant.
In the recent years, Wuu has won numerous state, national and international competitions and performed across the globe. In 2015, Wuu won First Prize in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition for Young Artists. In the same year, he also won Second Prize and special Schubert Prize in the International e-Piano Junior Competition, Third Prize and special Mozart Prize in the Cleveland International Piano Competition for the Young Artists, Second Prize and the Best Performance award of a composition by Russian Composers in the Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU International Piano Competition. He was also the winner of 2017 National YoungArts Competition. In addition, Wuu was named a 2014-2016 Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation and a 2016-2021 MTAC Young Artist Guild (YAG) member, the highest honor awarded to California music students.
Wuu has performed in major venues in the U.S., France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Poland, Romania and China. In NYC, Wuu performed at the United Nations Headquarters in the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, at the WQXR Greene Space, and at Carnegie Hall for the Grammy’s Salute to Classical Music concert. Other notable concert performances were at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Aspen Festival, Ravinia Festival, Hilton Head Bravo Piano Festival and Chopin Foundation of the United States. In 2013, Wuu was selected as one of the twelve young pianists from around the world to participate in the Inaugural Lang Lang Junior Music Camp in Munich, where he performed and worked with Lang Lang in concerts and masterclass. Wuu was also featured on WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and NPR’s From the Top radio programs.
“Sterling Elliot has the press nomenclature (as a 2021 Avery Fisher Grant winner) of being a rising star, however, that is not correct: he is a star cellist who has risen beyond hopeful promise to astonishing maturity. If you see his name on an upcoming venue, take the leap, and hear what he is up to, no matter what the program offers.”
“The remarkable young pianist commands a keyboard with the power, speed and finesse of artist twice his age.”