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Cellist Samuel Magill has had a rich and varied career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician and teacher. His recent Naxos CD of Franco Alfano’s Cello Sonata and Piano Trio was hailed on Gene Gaudette’s blog, Synaphaï, as one of the ten best CDs of 2009. Julian Haylock, writing in the November, 2009 The Strad, wrote that “Magill’s husky, dark timbre matches the Cello Sonata’s yearning intensity to perfection”.

Originally the Associate Principal Cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Mr. Magill remains a member of that orchestra today. From  1997 to 2005, Mr. Magill was Principal Cellist and featured soloist of the New York Symphonic Ensemble which tours Japan every summer, and performed most of the best known cello concertos in some of Japan’s most prestigious venues, such as performances of both the Schumann Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. He has also been the featured soloist  with the NYSE at Alice Tully Hall in New York, performing the Brahms  with violinist Mischa  Keylin. Panasonic has recorded live performances of the concerti of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Dohnanyi.

In 1997 Mr. Magill’s trio, Elysian, were winners of the Artist International Award, which provided this unusual flute, cello and harp trio with a Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall.  They toured Costa Rica in 2000.  Since 1994 he has given annual recitals  at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at New York’s Lincoln Center. Mr. Magill has for many years specialized in forgotten music of Romantic and early 20th century composers. He has performed at the Bruno Walter works by Pierné, Schmitt, Rubinstein, Korngold, Cadman, Ireland, Stanford, Lajtha, Jongen, Ropartz, Malipiero and Alfano. He plays a cello made for him in 1992 by Wendy and Peter Moes.

Mr. Magill  created the first ever recording  of Vernon Duke’s Cello  Concerto  in Moscow in 2005. Published in 1946 under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky, this work was commissioned by Gregor Piatigorsky and the Boston Symphony. This Naxos CD was released in November of 2007 and has been very favorably reviewed by Gramophone Magazine, the B.B.C. Music Magazine, and the American Record Guide called Sam’s performance “flat-out magnificent”. In May 2010 he performed the Duke Concerto in its first public hearing in half a century with conductor Lou Kosma and the Vermont Philharmonic. Upcoming concerts include the Dohnanyi Concertstück with the Monmouth Symphony of New Jersey.

Originally from North Carolina, Mr. Magill was educated at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Shepherd School of Music of Rice University. His principal teachers were Zara Nelsova, Laurence Lesser and Irving Klein. He was a member of both the Houston and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras and was Artist in Residence at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.