17th Annual Salon Society featuring Austin Huntington, Principal Cellist with ISO
The 17th Annual Salon Society event will be held on April 28 beginning at 3 p.m. The evening will begin with live entertainment by
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Principal cellist Austin Huntington and accompanying pianist Kent Cook. Salon Society is a very important fundraising event for the Propylaeum and includes live entertainment, silent auction and wine pull, as well as dinner.
Austin Huntington was appointed principal cellist of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in June 2015 at the age of 20, currently making him one of the youngest principal musicians of any major American orchestra. Recently, he was a finalist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s principal cello position in March 2018 and previously served as principal cellist in the Colburn Orchestra and Encore Chamber Orchestra, as well as a substitute for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Austin is the grand-prize winner of the 2012 Irving M. Klein International String Competition, the 2011 Stulberg International String Competition, the 2012 MUSICAAS International String Competition, the 2013 Aspen Music Festival’s Low String Strings Competition, and the 2009 MTNA National String Competition.
Austin has collaborated in chamber music performances with artists such as violinists Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Renaud Capucon, Augustin Hadelich, and Anne Akiko Meyers, violist Cynthia Phelps, cellists Robert DeMaine and Mark Kosower, pianists Wu Han, Garrick Ohlssohn, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and bassist Edgar Meyer.
Since his first solo orchestra debut at age 10, he has gone on to perform as a guest soloist with orchestras such as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Marin Symphony, Colburn Orchestra, Salomon Chamber Orchestra, Peninsula Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, South Bend Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and Chicago Northwest Symphony Orchestra.
In the summer, Austin has attended the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Kronberg Academy in Germany, the Aspen Music Festival and School, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, California, the Perlman Music
Program, the Academie International de Music de Montpellier in France, the Credo Chamber Music Festival, and the Meadowmount School of Music.
Austin is a member of the faculty at the University of Indianapolis, where he is also the cellist of The Indianapolis Quartet, the university’s string quartet-in-residence. He is a board member of the Indianapolis Suzuki Academy and was previously an adjunct lecturer at Indiana University. Austin holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Colburn School Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Ronald Leonard. His previous teachers include Richard Hirschl, Brinton Smith, Paul Katz, David Finckel, and Richard Aaron.
