Masumi Per Rostad Talks Instruments with Cellist & VC Artist Sterling Elliott

Take a look at Sterling's rare Gennaro Gagliano cello from 1741

Grammy Award-winning, Japanese-Norwegian violist Masumi Per Rostad is an active performer and professor of viola and chamber music at the Eastman School of Music. As a former member of the Pacifica Quartet for almost two decades, he also founded DoCha, a chamber music festival in Champaign, Illinois.

Amidst his busy schedule, Masumi sits down with his friends and colleagues to discuss the ins and outs of their instruments in his Sound Post series.

After a successful Series 1 in 2020, The Violin Channel is pleased to present Series 2 of Sound Post! Episode 5 features cellist Sterling Elliott.

A current Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School, where he is completing post-graduate performance studies with Joel Krosnick and Clara Kim, Sterling is a former first prize winner of both the junior and senior divisions of the Sphinx Competition. In 2021, he was awarded a highly sought-after Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts $25,000 Avery Fisher Career grant.

Additionally, Elliott was the first recipient of New York’s National Arts Club’s Herman and Mary Neuman Music Scholarship Award and is a previous recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s Isaac Stern Award — presented in recognition as an extraordinary classical musician of color whose activating demonstrating artistic excellence, an outstanding work ethic, determination and an ongoing commitment to leadership in his community.

Sterling has made performance debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, and the Dallas Symphony.