Anthony Elliott is in great demand as a conductor, and as a concert cellist.  Known for his fluid technique and assured interpretations, he has led numerous professional, amateur, and youth orchestras in prestigious settings around the world.  Formerly Music Director of the Dexter Community Orchestra, and the Michigan Youth Symphony at the University of Michigan, presently he is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Music at the University of Michigan.  He has shared podium duties at the Texas Music Festival with Maxim Shostakovich and Christoph Eschenbach, and at the Blossom Music Festival with Leonard Slatkin and Jahja Ling.

 

Recent performances include reengagements with the Sphinx Symphony at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, the Prince George’s Philharmonic in Washington DC, the Icicle Creek Chamber Orchestra, and the Port Milford Chamber Orchestra.  On two separate occasions he has led the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to great critical acclaim.  Guest conducting engagements have also included the San Antonio Symphony, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the CAMMAC Orchestra, the Scott Joplin Chamber Orchestra, the Vancouver Chamber Players, and the 75th anniversary celebration of the Seattle Youth Symphony at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

 

His conducting repertory includes most of the orchestral classics, as well as diverse newer works by African American composers Michael Abels, James Lee, Augustus Hill, and Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, American composers Joan Tower, Michael Daugherty, Leslie Bassett, and Evan Chambers, and Canadian composers Robert Turner, Frederick Schipizky, Jeffrey Ryan, and Richard Cohen.  Fully staged opera performances have included Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Menotti’s the Consul, and Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors.  Choral collaborations have included such works as Britten’s Saint Nicholas Cantata, the Fantasia on Christmas Carols and the Hodie of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the Bach and Rutter Magnificats, and the Poulenc, Rutter, and Vivaldi Glorias.  Collaborations with internationally known soloists have included Pinchas Zukerman, Nathaniel Rosen, Phillipe Bianconni, Margarita Noye, Jeffrey Biegel, Valerie Gillard, Paul Rosenthal, and Alice Neary.

 

As a tireless advocate for music education, he has led the All Northwest Orchestra as well as the All State Orchestras of Texas, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Vermont.  As Music Director of the Houston Youth Symphony and Ballet, he led a joint concert with the Youth Orchestra of Osaka/Kobe Japan, led a heralded two week long concert tour to Holland, Germany, and Austria, and was honored by Houston Mayor Kathryn Whitmire and the Houston City Council.  He has given countless free clinics and workshops at inner city schools and community centers around the country. He has appeared in performances in Detroit with students from the Cornerstone School, Cass Tech High School, the Detroit School for the Arts, and the Marvin L Winan’s Fine Arts Academy.

 

Anthony Elliot is also a prize winning cellist, being the first person to win the Feuermann International Solo Cello Competition.  He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony, and the CBC Toronto Orchestra.  He has appeared in chamber music with the present and former Concertmasters of the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Emerson, Cleveland, Juilliard, and Concord String Quartets.