Emilio Colón tours as a concert cellist giving recitals, master classes, and playing as soloist with orchestras. Recent appearances have taken him to Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Korea, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States. He is a member of the faculty at the Roundtop Music Festival in Texas, and Chamber Music Unbound – Mammoth Lakes Music Festival in California, and has offered courses at the Paris Conservatoire; Toho Gakuen in Tokyo, Japan: The Geneva Conservatoire: and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. Colón’s arrangements, editions and original compositions are published by Masters Music Publications and H.P. Music Publications. His recordings are featured on the Enharmonic, Centaur, Zephyr, and Lyras labels. Colón currently records for Klavier featured as solo cellist, chamber musician, conductor, and composer under the label.
As conductor, Colón has led ICE (Indiana Cello Ensemble) in annual programs featuring mainstream cello ensemble music, as well as his own acclaimed arrangements that have been performed by other ensembles around the world. The 6th American Cello Congress chose Colón’s arrangements as the center-piece of the main ensemble concert program. His debut as recorded composer took place with his ta"N"go for piano trio featured on Trio Amadé’s recording “Obseción”. Recent performance highlights include the premiere of Colón’s Recuerdos de Tata for cello & orchestra with Colón as soloist; Premieres of Colón’s 2007 commissions: Dana la Colorá’ for Double bass & Piano, Los Niños y las Minarets for Piano Trio, and Los Jolgoriosos for Violin & Piano; guest Conductor and Soloist of the Classical Symphony Orchestra of Guatemala; appearances at Barge Music in New York City; concerts with Casals Festival of Prades. Concert highlights include; recital tours of Holland, Korea and Japan and guest conducting and soloist with Orquesta de Camara Concerto in Puerto Rico. He is an Associate Professor of Music at the Indiana University School of Music and the Executive Vice President of the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center Foundation.
“A dramatic and passionate interpretation…
a great artist.
Bravo!
Jorge E. Martínez Solá
El Nuevo Día, San Juan, P.R.An active chamber musician, Colón played with the Emile Beaux Jeux Piano Trio, which won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Sponsorship from Chamber Music America for two consecutive residencies, at Upper Iowa University for the 1993-94 season, and at Iowa’s Hawkeye Community College and the Jesup Community Schools for the 1994-95 season. From 1996 to 1998 Colón was a member of the faculty at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he performed throughout Florida as a member of the string Trio Vizcaya. From 1998-2004 he was a member of Trio Amadé the resident ensemble at Florida Atlantic University, and a guest Dorothy F. Chandler Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Music at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.
Born in Puerto Rico, cellist Emilio Colón received a bachelor’s degree as a student of Joaquín Vidaechea, from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music in 1986, where he won the Pablo Casals Medal upon graduation. As a student and teaching assistant to the distinguished cellist and pedagogue Janos Starker, Colón earned a master’s degree from the Indiana University School of Music in 1989. He won first prize at the Las Americas Festival Solo Competition as well as at Indiana University’s Concerto Competition. Mr. Colón plays a J.B. Vuillaume Cello from 1844 and a Dominique Peccatte bow.