Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Still in his mid-twenties, Elliott has appeared with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and Dallas Symphony, working with noted conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffrey Kahane, and Mei-Ann Chen, among others.
The 2025-26 season includes Sterling Elliott’s debuts with the Phoenix Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, and at the BBC Proms with Edwin Outwater, in addition to his professional debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic. As a featured soloist with Sphinx Virtuosi, he takes part in a multi-city tour with performances at Carnegie Hall, Shriver Concert Series, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Gardner Museum, Schubert Club, and more. As a chamber musician, he continues his residency in the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, appearing with CMSLC at Alice Tully Hall and on tour throughout the United States, as well as in trio performances with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien.
Recent highlights include debut performances with the Atlanta, San Francisco, New Jersey, Columbus, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids symphonies, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Reno Philharmonic. Elliott has also made returns to Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s led by Louis Langrée, and performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Madison Symphony alongside Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham. He premiered a new orchestral version of John Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria, commissioned for him by a consortium of orchestras, led by the Orlando Philharmonic and music director Eric Jacobsen.
As the Robey Artist with the London-based Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT), in partnership with Music Masters, Elliott regularly performs throughout the U.K. and Europe including at Wigmore Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as well as on tour in New Zealand. In 2024, Elliott was named a BBC New Generation Artist.
Sterling’s long association with the Sphinx Organization began when he won the 2014 Junior Division Competition. The following year he went on to tour with Sphinx Virtuosi before being awarded the Organization’s Isaac Stern Award in 2016. He became the first alumnus from the Sphinx Performance Academy to win the Sphinx Competition in 2019. Sterling received the Sphinx Medal of Excellence in 2024, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization.
Born into a musical household, Sterling initially wanted to play the violin like his older brother and sister. After a bit of encouragement, he completed The Elliott Family String Quartet, an ensemble that enjoyed personalized arrangements of genres such as bluegrass, gospel, and funk music.
He is an ambassador of the Young Strings of America, a string sponsorship operated by Shar Music. He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.