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Biography - TCW Director
Wesley Baldwin , University of Tennessee
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Cellist Wesley Baldwin performs throughout the United States and Europe as cello soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist with orchestra he has appeared throughout the United States. The Washington Post called his playing"…almost orchestrally rich in sound; bold but well controlled in phrasing and dynamics." The Miami Herald wrote of his “passionate conviction” in performance, and the Knoxville News Sentinel observed that “Baldwin played with the consummate skill of a gifted musician who never upstages the communication of the music.”

As a chamber musician he has collaborated with principal string players from the Utah, Philadelphia, Saint Paul Chamber, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras; he has also enjoyed collaborations with the Miami String Quartet, and with many prominent solo artists, recently including Norman Krieger, Michael Gurt, Julie Albers, Janet Sung, and Jasper Wood. He has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Subtropics Music Festivals. Internationally he has performed in chamber concerts in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica.

He was the founder of the Plymouth String Quartet, with whom he was a top prizewinner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition. Other honors Dr. Baldwin has received include the Prix Mercure at the Mercure Wettbewerb in Vienna and the first prize in the Homer Ulrich Performance Award Competition.

As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world’s great conductors, and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, and Brazil. His orchestral colleagues there selected him as the recipient of the New World Symphony's Community Board Award for artistic integrity and leadership. He now serves on the audition
committee for New World Symphony auditions in regional auditions throughout the U.S. and Canada each spring.

Wesley has recorded for the Naxos, Innova, and Zyode labels, as well as for Centaur records, which will release his third CD under that label in 2010, featuring chamber music of Honegger. His recordings of music by Alan Shulman, including the cello concerto, will be released soon on the Albany Label.

Dr. Baldwin currently serves as associate professor of cello at the University of Tennessee, where he received the Provost's Award for Professional Promise in Research and Creative Activity. In the summers he performs and teaches at the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, and at the Wintergreen Festival, where he serves as principal cellist and faculty member of the Wintergreen Academy.