Carol Ou
A gold medalist of the Global Music Awards, cellist Carol Ou has garnered accolades with her “fiery, marvelous” and “meltingly melodic outpourings” (Boston Globe) and her “wonderfully pure cello tone and incisive technique” (The Strad). As a soloist, chamber musician, and a former member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, Ms. Ou’s performances have taken her to prestigious concert halls across five continents, including Carnegie Weill Hall, Jordan Hall, National Gallery of Art, Gardner Museum, National Concert Hall in Kiev, and the National Concert Hall of Taipei.
At ease with the diverse musical styles of the last five centuries, Ms. Ou’s creative programming is often a mélange of traditional European masterworks with more eclectic ones. She has recorded three of the most beloved cello concerti by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar, and premiered several new compositions written for her. She gave the first performance of Hsiao Tyzen's Cello Concerto in Taipei and collaborated with Hsiao on the premiere of a number of solo and chamber music works throughout the US, Taiwan, and Singapore. American composers, Richard Toensing and Daniel Pinkham, have also dedicated works to her. Recent new music performances have featured collaborations with crossover artists on the mandolin, banjo, accordion, didgeridoo, erhu, pipa, and the Persian santoor.
As a prize-winning recording artist, Carol Ou’s discography includes solo and chamber music discs issued by Chi-Mei, Naxos, CRI, and Albany Records. Her three solo recordings are all produced by Chi-Mei in Taiwan. Her recording of Walter Piston's Chamber Music won the 2001 Chamber Music America's Best Chamber Music CD award and her recording of Jeff Midkiff’s “Music for Mandolin & String Quartet” won the Gold Medal award at the 2018 Global Music Awards. Other recordings with the Carpe Diem String Quartet include “Sergei Taneyev’s String Quartets” - Vol. 4 & 5 on Naxos and “The Book of Calligraphy” - with solo cello and string quartet works by Reza Vali - released by Albany Records.
A graduate of Yale University, Ms. Ou received her BA magna cum laude from Yale College and her MM, MMA, and DMA in music performance from the Yale School of Music. A much sought-after teacher, Ms. Ou serves on the artist cello faculty of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Music and teaches both preparatory cello students as well as college chamber music students at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Since 2015, as the assistant chair of the string department at the conservatory’s School of Continuing Education, she also cultivates a music-loving adult community of performers. In addition to her regular teaching duties, Ms. Ou travels internationally to teach cello and chamber music master classes, most recently in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Italy.