Wesley Baldwin
Cellist Wesley Baldwin holds degrees from Yale College, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Maryland. He performs throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist with orchestra he has appeared with the Laredo Philharmonic, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Symphony of the Mountains, and the Aberdeen, Bemidji, Bryan, Chattanooga, Florence, Germantown, Johnson City, Hot Springs, Knoxville, La Porte, Oak Ridge, Manchester, New River Valley, Salisbury, Wintergreen, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras, among others. His passionate and charismatic performances have been widely lauded.
An advocate for great music from all eras, Mr. Baldwin is one of the only performers of several little known and new concerti for cello, including recently those by Sollima, Wagenseil, Jacob T.V., Behzad Ranjbaran, and Alan Shulman. His recording of music for cello by Alan Shulman, released by Albany records, enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. He has also recorded for the Naxos, Zyode, and Innova labels. His most recent CD release, his fourth on the Centaur label, features the chamber music of Arthur Honegger.
Wesley was the founder of the Plymouth String Quartet, with whom he was a top prize-winner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition. He was also cellist of the James Piano Quartet for five years, with residencies at both Sweet Briar College and the Wintergreen Festival. More recently he has been a member of the Edison Piano Trio. Solo and chamber music performing honors Baldwin has received include the Prix Mercure, Homer Ulrich Awards, and a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Performing Artist Fellowship.
As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world’s great conductors and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, and Brazil. His orchestral colleagues there selected him as the recipient of the New World Symphony’s Community Board Award for artistic integrity and leadership. For many years Wesley served on New World Symphony regional audition committee panels throughout the U.S.
Dr. Baldwin has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Hot Springs, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Sub-tropics Music Festivals, and internationally in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. In 2017 and again in 2018 he had extended tours performing and teaching in China. In January of 2020 Wesley performed in a series of chamber concerts with the Ensemble D’Amici in South Korea.
In the summers he performs and teaches at the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, the ARIA International Academy, and at the Wintergreen Festival, where he is the principal cellist of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. In 2022 he founded the Ursus String Camp held at the University of Tennessee.
Currently Professor of Cello at UT, where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise, Wesley previously taught at the University of Maryland and at Florida International University, where he was artist-in-residence with the Plymouth Quartet. He. His former students play and teach throughout the United States and Malaysia, and have received honors including a 2021 Marshall Scholarship for graduate study at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Dr. Baldwin’s commitment to string education extends beyond his work at the University of Tennessee. He founded and directs the Tennessee Cello Workshop, an annual three-day gathering of more than 170 cellists of all ages from throughout the United States held each February. After serving as conductor of the Knoxville Youth Chamber Orchestra for 15 years, he now serves as Director of the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Association Chamber Music program. In Knoxville he also serves as Co-Director of the Knoxville Suzuki Academy.
Wesley lives in Knoxville with his wife, soprano Melisa Barrick Baldwin, and four wonderful children. www.wesleybaldwincello.com
Jennifer Bloch
From Sebastopol, Calif., Jennifer Bloch joined the KSO in 1999 to play the viola. She had previously performed at several music festivals, including festivals in Aspen, Colo., Interlochen, Mich., and Round Top, Texas. She was also a faculty member of the Amherst Quartet at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. She attended Vanderbilt University for her undergraduate degree in viola performance and Indiana University for her master’s degree. She loves to travel, ski, read, and spend time with her family. She also teaches private viola lessons.
