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. In his young career, he has already appeared with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and Dallas Symphony, with noted conductors Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffrey Kahane, Bramwell Tovey, Mei-Ann Chen and others. In the summer of 2022, he made his Aspen Festival debut performing the Brahms Double Concerto with Gil Shaham, and he made his German debut in Munich in May 2022 performing chamber music with Daniel Hope.

The 2022–23 season sees his debuts with the Colorado Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, North Carolina Symphony and Ft. Worth Symphony, among others, with return appearances including the Buffalo Philharmonic. He appears in recital under the auspices of the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, the Tippett Rise Festival and Capitol Region Classical in Albany, New York. In October, he participated in the Caramoor Music Festival’s prestigious Evnin Rising Stars series, a weeklong program of coaching and chamber music culminating in a performance in Katonah, New York.

Fast becoming a favorite on the summer festival circuit, Elliott has appeared at Music@Menlo, Chamberfest in Cleveland and Chamberfest Northwest in Calgary, Music at Angel Fire, and the La Jolla Music Society.

As the youngest of three siblings, Elliott did not want to play the cello; he instead wanted to play the violin like his older brother and sister. After a bit of encouragement, he completed The Elliott Family String Quartet by learning to play the cello at the age of three under the direction of Suzuki cello teacher Susan Hines.

He went on to make his concerto debut at the age of 7 after winning the Junior Division of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. He later won the 2014 Richmond Symphony Concerto Competition and the Bay Youth Orchestra of Virginia Concerto Competition.

Elliott has a long history with the Sphinx Organization, where he first received second place in the 2013 National Sphinx Competition Junior Division and then won the 2014 Junior Division. In 2016, he received the organization’s Isaac Stern Award; in 2018, he toured with the Sphinx Virtuosi; and, in 2019, he won the Sphinx Senior Division Competition.

Elliott is a two-time alumnus of NPR’s From the Top, where he was named a recipient of its Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. He also performed several concerts in Switzerland at the 2019 World Economic Forum. He is a Young Strings of America ambassador for SHAR Strings.

In 2019, he was the first recipient of The National Arts Club’s Herman and Mary Neumann Music Scholarship Award. In Spring 2022, Elliott participated in Performance Today’s Young Artist Residency, which featured educational events, interviews and a feature on the nationally syndicated radio program.

Sterling Elliott is a Kovner Fellow at the Juilliard School, where he is pursuing his Master of Music degree, studying with Joel Krosnick and Clara Kim. He completed his undergraduate degree in cello performance at Juilliard in May 2021.

He currently performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.