Photo by Abigel Kralik
Described by the Chicago Tribune as “a musician of quicksilver brilliance,” Aaron Wolff is a New York City-based cellist and performer active in solo, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary capacities. Aaron gave his Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall as the winner of the 2023 Leo B. Ruiz Memorial recital. Other recent performances include Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A Major at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Schumann’s Funf Stücke im Volkston at IMS Prussia Cove Concerts, Debussy’s Cello Sonata on CNN’s Quest Means Business, and Marc Migo’s La Dona d’Aigua with the Juilliard Orchestra.
As a high school student of Natasha Brofsky, Aaron won First Prize in the Boston Symphony Concerto Competition, and as a college student of Darrett Adkins was winner of the Oberlin Concerto Competition. He has also been a prizewinner at the Schadt String Competition, Lillian and Maurice Barbash Bach Competition and Cleveland Cello Society Competition. He was a finalist in the 2021 Young Concert Artist International Auditions, and was one of four American candidates at the 2021 Geneva International Cello Competition.
Equally at home in chamber music, he has collaborated with the eighth blackbird, A Far Cry, The Argus Quartet and the Boston Trio, and has spent return summers at Yellow Barn, the Perlman Music Program, and Lucerne Festival Academy. He currently plays with numerous groups including New York Classical Players, Contemporaneous, Metropolis Ensemble, Argento New Music Project and Princeton Symphony.
Aaron has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, Bargemusic, The City Reliquary, MASS MoCA, Nasher Sculpture Center and The Cleveland Art Museum as well as traditional venues like Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Prague’s Rudolfinum, Vienna’s Musikverein, Köln’s Philharmonie, and KKL Luzern.
Aaron has also found creative outlets in acting – most notably in a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man – and in arranging and writing about music: he has provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s Broad City and covered New York’s new music scene for the online journal I Care If You Listen.
Aaron received a B.A. in comparative literature and B.M. in cello performance from Oberlin College & Conservatory. He then completed Master’s degree at Juilliard, where he was a Kovner Fellow under Joel Krosnick, and an Artist Diploma under Tim Eddy and Fred Sherry. He is now pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at CUNY: The Graduate Center, studying with violinist Mark Steinberg of the Brentano Quartet. Aaron plays an 1813 Thomas Kennedy cello made in London.