As the principal cellist of the Chicago Lyric Opera and as the principal cellist of the American Ballet Theatre orchestra, Daniel Morganstern spent more than four decades performing virtually every cello solo in the opera and ballet repertoire from the orchestral pits of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and the Civic Opera House in Chicago. He was often heard on radio and television broadcasts accompanying great singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Joan Sutherland, Samuel Ramey, and Renee Fleming, and great dancers like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, and Rudolph Nureyev, but he was never seen by the audience. Following his retirement from the Lyric Opera in 2012, Mr. Morganstern assembled a retrospective of his career, beginning with his musical coming of age during the early 1960s, a true golden age of opportunity for musicians in America. He offers a lively picture of the times, gives candid portraits of his teachers, particularly Leonard Rose, and presents human sides of the many conductors he worked closely with during his long career.
About the Author: Praised as a "first-rate cellist" in The New York Times and a "superb cellist" in The Strad, Daniel Morganstern has presented most of the standard repertoire in his New York recitals that have included three at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, five at Carnegie Recital Hall, and others at the Lincoln Center Library and the New York Cultural Center. He served as Principal Cellist for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House for over 40 years. His recordings include sonatas by Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven (complete), and Rachmaninoff; trios by Brahms (complete), Beethoven, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky; and duos by Ravel and Kodaly. His editions for International Music Company include concertos by Dvorak, Schumann, Saint-Saens, Boccherini, Elgar, and Tchaikovsky; the cello parts to three Brahms trios; Fundamentals of Cello Technique; Cello Solos from Opera and Ballet; and a transcription of the Schumann A Minor Violin Sonata. His treatise Practice for Performance is published by Mel Bay, and his articles appear in The Instrumentalist. He has been on the faculty of the Aspen Music School, the String Academy at Indiana University, and the Meadowmount School of Music.