Twin Cities’ new principal cello is sister to principal viola (and a concertmaster)
UncategorizedThe St Paul Chamber Orchestra has excitedly announced the recruitment of Julie Albers as principal cello.
She’s terrific.
So is her sister Becca who is assistant principal viola up the road at the Minnesota Orchestra.
And a third sister, Laura, is associate concertmaster at the San Francisco Opera Orchestra (Emily E. Hogstad reports).
That’s quite a family, seriously going places.
I think the Preucil family can top this. Watching the Cleveland Orchestra broadcast from the Proms a few nights ago reminded me of the situation in their ranks. Concertmaster William Preucil is joined by both his daughter and sister in the first violins and his brother in law is principal second. Quite a lot has been written about this in the past.
I think the Bach family has both the Albers and Preucil families beat. One of them was Bach!
But you know – that’s a really insightful point Andrew.
Julie will be premiering a concerto (“The Winter’s Tale”) by Michael Torke with the Albany (NY) Symphony, conducted by David Alan Miller, on December 20 & 21.
I had the great fortune to attend the Cleveland Institute of Music with both Julie and Laura, and got to conduct the orchestra in Laura’s performance of Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen”. They are wonderful musicians.
And while we’re on the topic of musical families, let’s not forget the Weilerstein/Hornik family (also out of CIM).
You omitted Ann Preucil, who as far as I know, is still principal harpist with an orchestra in Indiana. It’s so typical to overlook a harpist.