Rhonda Rider

For over two decades, cellist Rhonda Rider was a member of the Naumburg Award-winning Lydian Quartet and Triple Helix Piano Trio. Rider’s many chamber music and solo recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards and cited as Critic's Choice in both the New York Times and Boston Globe. With the Lydians she was awarded numerous prizes at Banff, Evian and Portsmouth Competitions. As a soloist, she won the Concert Artists Guild Award as well as an Aaron Copland Recording Grant. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Corcoran Gallery, Wigmore Hall, Symphony Space, Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has been a guest artist with the Boston Chamber Music Society, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Castle of Our Skins, New Gallery Series, Chatter ABQ, Radius, Chameleon Arts and Shelter Music Boston. Dedicated to the performance of new music, Rider has premiered and recorded works by such renowned composers as John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Yu-Hui Chang, Raven Chacon, Laura Kaminsky and Elliott Carter. 

Rider has given masterclasses at schools including Yale School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Tainan University for the Arts and Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, American String Teachers’ Association, Music Teacher’s National Association and Chamber Music America. She has also adjudicated at the Concert Artists Guild, Stulberg and Fischoff Competitions. 

Always interested in bringing classical music to unusual and essential places, Rider was named Artist-in-Residence at Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest National Parks. Eighteen works for solo cello were commissioned for these residencies. The works have been performed, by numerous cellists, across the U.S. in a wide variety of venues from Boston and Dallas to Wupatki National Monument and rural New York State. 

During the summer months, she performs and teaches at festivals including Music from Salem, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood, Harvard Chamber Music Festival and is the cello coach for the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong. Each June, she holds a Cello Seminar dedicated to contemporary music in Washington County, New York. Continuing the teaching legacy of her mentors Aldo Parisot, Richard Kapuscinski and Robert Koff, Rider is on the faculty of Boston University and Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she was twice awarded Outstanding Teacher of the Year/Best of Berklee. Her cello octet of students from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, BoCoCelli, regularly premieres works and most recently recorded a 360-degree video of Michael Begay’s Daan at Power Station/BerkleeNY.

Rider holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Yale School of Music.