Photo by Abigel Kralik
Described by the Chicago Tribune as “a musician of quicksilver brilliance,” Aaron Wolff is a prizewinner of the 2024 Naumburg Cello Competition and cellist of the four-time Grammy-award winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird. As the recipient of the Leo B. Ruiz Memorial Prize, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall in 2023, and has performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein, and Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums. Committed equally to music new and old, highlights of the ‘24-‘25 season included the premiere of Anna Heflin’s monodrama The INcomplete Cosmicomics at Experiments in Opera and chamber recitals presented by Valley of the Moon Festival and the Dame Myra Hess series.
Aaron has been a prizewinner at the Boston Symphony, Schadt National String, Barbash Bach, and Cleveland Cello Society Competitions, and a return attendee to IMS Prussia Cove, Yellow Barn, Perlman Music Program and Lucerne Festival Academy. He has also found creative outlets in acting – most notably a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man – and in arranging and writing about music: he provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s sitcom Broad City and concert reviews for the online journal I Care If You Listen.
Aaron holds a BA in comparative literature from Oberlin College and an MM and Artist Diploma from Juilliard. His primary mentors have been Natasha Brofsky, Darrett Adkins, Joel Krosnick, Tim Eddy and Mark Steinberg. He is now pursuing a doctorate at CUNY Graduate Center, where his research will focus on the maverick musical life of cellist and composer Arthur Russell. He plays an 1813 Thomas Kennedy cello made in London.