Biography

Cellist Andy Bryenton has been a member of the core ensemble of the Knoxville Symphony since 1986, and Principal Cellist since 2000. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Hartt School of Music, where he studied with David Wells, Leslie Parnas, and Raya Garbusova. His Master in Music is from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he was a student of Walter Despalj and Leopold Teraspulsky. Since the early ’80s, he has summered with such festivals as Yellow Barn, Music Mountain, Hampden-Sydney, New Hampshire, Orford, and Spoleto. Opera has also been an important part of Andy’s musical journey, as he has spent many summers with both the Des Moines Metro Opera and Opera Saratoga.

Andy has a busy teaching schedule with a private studio at home, as adjunct faculty at Carson-Newman University, and as a Music Arts School faculty member in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In addition to his classical output, he is cellist with Kukuly and the Gypsy Fuego, a Knoxville-based Swing jazz ensemble which is unique worldwide in its instrumentation and scope. He has also been featured on recordings by several local alternative artists of import. Andy and his wife, violinist Helen Bryenton, live in an 1892 George Barber Victorian house in Knoxville with a talkative cat named Annabelle, a black sheprador named Lucy, and a blue and white VW bus named Stella.