Coming from a musical family, Matthew Zalkind‘s decision to pick up a cello wasn’t unusual as both of his parents were members of the Utah Symphony.
“I started playing when I was very young, five years old to be exact,” Zalkind said. “I started because I saw Yo-Yo Ma playing on Sesame Street and I begged my parents for a cello after seeing Yo-Yo.”
Zalkind attended Skyline High School and is very familiar with Salt Lake City. “I grew up here in Salt Lake City,” Zalkind said. “I have played a lot in Utah as a result of my local ties.”
Zalkind’s career took off during his early days, first with his high school orchestra, then he went on to earn undergraduate and master’s degrees at the Juilliard School in New York. He also received a doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The New York Times even wrote that his performance in the Juilliard Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall was of “impressive refinement, eloquent phrasing, and singing tone.”
Zalkind will be attending over eight different music festivals during the summer months before returning to Denver where he currently works as Assistant Professor at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music.
Zalkind is first making a stop here in Utah this summer, where he will have the opportunity to collaborate with musicians like Hasse Borup. “[Hasse Borup] just asked me about a year ago if I wanted to come out and be here for a week as a guest artist, to play a recital and to coach the kids in chamber music,” Zalkind explained.
Borup, who is currently an Associate Professor of Violin and the director of String and Chamber Studies at the U, has been running a Summer Chamber Music Workshop at the U that started June 26 and will go until June 30.
On Wednesday, June 29, Zalkind will perform a recital in the Libby Gardner Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. The cost is $5 for U students, $10 for faculty and seniors, and $15 for the general public.
Updated 6/29/2016 9:30pm