Zuill Bailey, cello, and Awadagin Pratt, piano

We are delighted to present Zuill Bailey, cello, and Awadagin Pratt, piano, for the final concert of Chamber Music Albuquerque's 83rd season.   These two artists first met in a ping pong duel when they were teenaged participants in a music festival. In the years since, they’ve kept their association alive through frequent collaboration on the great works of their shared repertoire—music that opens new vistas for both of these remarkable soloists. 

Awadagin Pratt launched onto the international stage by winning the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1992 and receiving a 1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant.  He has received acclaim for delivering “forceful, imaginative, and precisely tinted” performances (Washington Post), and is hailed as “one of the great and distinctive American pianists and conductors of our time” (WGBH).  He is a former Albuquerque resident and is professor of piano at the San Francisco Conservatory. 

Zuill Bailey, widely considered one of the premiere cellists in the world, is a Grammy Award-winning internationally-renowned soloist, recitalist, Artistic Director and teacher.  He is the Artistic Director of El Paso Pro-Musica (Texas), the Sitka Summer Music Festival/Series and Cello Seminar (Alaska), Juneau Jazz and Classics (Alaska), the Northwest Bach Festival (Washington),  Classical Inside Out Series- Mesa Arts Center (Arizona), and is Director of the Center for Arts Entrepreneurship and Professor of Cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.  His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry and engaging personality has made him one of the most sought-after and active cellists today.

Both artists have appeared for Chamber Music Albuquerque in the past, but this will be their first performance on our series as a duo.