Performer Bio
Cellist and baroque cellist Sophie Benn has been hailed for her “brilliant technical prowess” (ClevelandClassical.com), and holds degrees in cello performance from Rice University (BM) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM, PS). She is a frequent performer on faculty recitals at Butler University as well as in chamber music concerts across Indianapolis and the surrounding region. Recently, these have included appearances with the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society and on faculty recitals at Butler University and the University of Indianapolis.
On historical instruments, she performs frequently as soloist and chamber musician with colleagues from most of the United States’ prominent period-instrument ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, Les Delices, the Newberry Consort, and Bourbon Baroque. Sophie also loves working with composers and premiering new work. She has served as one of the principal cellists of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in Switzerland and on tour, and has played with numerous contemporary music groups, including Ars Futura and FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. Sophie has worked with Joel Sachs, Miranda Cuckson, and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Alarm Will Sound, Yarn/Wire, and the Kronos Quartet. From 2017-2021, she was a Director of Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP), a presenting organization for experimental contemporary musicians and sound artists that she co-founded in 2017.
For nine years, Sophie was a proud member of the music scene in Cleveland, Ohio. Her activities in Cleveland included serving as the principal cellist of the chamber orchestra CityMusic Cleveland, as a core musician of the ensemble Opus 216, and as a frequent performer at Classical Revolution Cleveland. In 2019, she was named one of moCa Cleveland’s New Agents, a group of 52 “experimenters, catalysts, and change-makers, who are pushing Cleveland forward right now.”