Aron Zelkowicz

With a broad career as a cellist, performer, teacher and administrator, Aron Zelkowicz has

cultivated a repertoire both classical and ethnic, familiar and obscure. He serves as the Founder

and Director of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival, which presents rare and diverse works

from Jewish musical traditions. Under his guidance, the Festival has featured renowned

ensembles and guest artists from the orchestral, chamber, early music, rock, and world music

genres in innovative and thematic programs, for which he oversees every aspect of fundraising,

marketing, production, and artistic direction. Critics noted his “impressive” directorial debut of

an original, fully staged production of the chamber opera “The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds”

by Ofer Ben-Amots, and dubbed the Festival “one of the highest quality concert series in town”

(Pittsburgh Tribune- Review) and a local “best-kept secret” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the past

two decades, the Festival has, over the course of 36 events, programmed over 150 pieces of

classical chamber and orchestral music inspired by Jewish traditions, including several world

premieres and commissions.

Aron serves as the producer for the Festival’s ongoing CD series, "Russian Jewish

Classics”, which also features his talents as a cellist. These recordings (dubbed "first-rate"

by Fanfare Magazine) represent a multi-year project devoted to the St. Petersburg Society for

Jewish Folk Music and its affiliated Russian composers. The first five volumes have been

released by the independent British label Toccata Classics, with future albums projected in a

series that will shed new light upon these masters of Jewish art-music.

As a cellist, Aron has performed at the Tanglewood, Banff, Aspen, Sarasota,

Chautauqua, Colorado, Cactus Pear and Sunflower festivals, with members of the Emerson and

Cleveland Quartets, as Principal Cello of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, with the Toronto

Symphony and National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, and on international tours with the

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Born in Ottawa, he grew up in Pittsburgh and is currently based

in Boston. He performs throughout the New England region as a member of the Rhode Island

Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra, the ProArte Chamber Orchestra of

Boston, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, as Assistant Principal Cello of the

Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and as Principal Cello of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and

the Boston Festival Orchestra. In recent years he has been featured as soloist in cello concertos by Dvorak, Elgar, Schumann, Saint-Saens, and Joel Hoffman with the Harvard Dudley Orchestra, Eastern Connecticut Valley Symphony, Concord Orchestra, and Boston Landmarks Orchestra.

This summer sees the release of Aron Zelkowicz's newest album, American Vignettes, a recital of contemporary works based on popular American genres with pianist Christina Wright-Ivanova. Released on the Toccata Next label, the recording features two world premieres as part of a diverse program by composers Stacy Garrop, Gabriela Lena Frank, Margaret Bonds, Kevin Puts, Stephen Paulus, and Carter Pann.