ERIN BREENE
Erin Breene is in great demand as both a chamber and orchestral musician. Ms. Breene is currently a member of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Long Beach Opera Orchestra. She regularly performs with Pacific Symphony and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and has served as Principal Cellist of the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Associate Principal Cellist with the Opera Pacific Orchestra, and Principal Cellist of Music Center Dance of Los Angeles. Ms. Breene has been a frequent performer on San Diego’s Art of Élan series, High Desert Chamber Music series, Carlsbad Music Festival, Laguna Beach Music Festival, and La Jolla’s Athenaeum series.
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"I was engaged by Cassadó’s “Intermezzo e Dance Finale” for cello,
the conclusion of his larger “Suite for Cello Solo,” largely because of
cellist Erin Breene’s masterful sweep of its dark, searching motifs.
She gave empathetic flight to the mysterious vision of this minor Catalan composer."
- Ken Herman, San Diego Story -
As soloist, Ms. Breene performed the Elgar Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra as a “Young Artist” competition winner. She also performed the Haydn Concerto in C Major with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Breene was named a Finalist in the 2003 Concert Artist’s Guild auditions with the Andros Quartet. As a member of the Basmati Quartet, she was the Grand Prize winner at the Coleman National Chamber Music Competition, and Second Prize winner at the 1999 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. During the summer months of 2000 and 2001, Erin attended the Tanglewood Institute where she had the opportunity to perform both orchestral and chamber music, and in the summer of 2002, she was a Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival.
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Ms. Breene served as Principal Cellist of the Juilliard Symphony and Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Aspen Sinfonia, and Rice University's Shepherd School Symphony where she received her BM degree under Paul Katz. Ms. Breene received her MM degree as a student of Timothy Eddy at the Juilliard School.
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Ms. Breene performs on a modern cello, made in 2013, by the Los Angeles maker “Eric Benning”. In her spare time she enjoys hiking, reading, hot yoga, fine wine, her three cats, and visiting her father in Rhode Island.