Seventeen year old cellist Nicholas Burkel began studying the cello at age eight in the Sayville School’s music program and with local teacher Annette Perry. In the 2012-13 season, he performed in the Long Island Youth Orchestra. Currently, Nicholas is a student of noted pedagogue Marion Feldman at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division, where he has been a recipient of the Marion Feldman Award for two years. At MSM, Nicholas plays in the Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Jonathan Strasser, and is in a piano trio coached by Fawn Weiner. In the fall of 2014, he made his debut as soloist with the New York Concerti-Sinfonietta at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall as a first prize winner in their concerto competition. In previous years, Nicholas was coached by the Kronos Quartet through the Kaufman Music Center’s Face The Music program, and has performed for internationally renowned violinist Hilary Hahn at her album release event at the Greenwich House Music School. In addition to appearing numerous times in the New York Times, the New Yorker and live on WQXR, Nicholas has performed extensively throughout the New York Metropolitan area in venues ranging from the Edison Ballroom, Steinway Hall, Roulette, The Queens Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall among others. As a competition winner, Nicholas has been a winner in the A.M.T.L. Young Musicians Concert, as a Chamber Musician in the Rondo Young Artist International Festival, among others. His Carnegie Hall performance of the Saint-Saens Concerto was described as “distinguished by incendiary temperament, well-articulated bowings... His exuberant approach, with double stops blessedly in tune, evidenced a thorough command of his instrument.” by the Epoch Times. Currently, Nicholas plays on a 19th century French cello on loan to him from the Carlsen Cello Foundation and will continue his studies with Professor Marion Feldman at Manhattan School of Music in the Fall of 2016.
