Hamilton Berry
About
Cellist Hamilton Berry's eclectic taste has led him to pursue a variety of performing, arranging, and composing projects in the New York area and beyond. A member of the Grammy-nominated PUBLIQuartet, the Toomai String Quintet, Founders, Decoda, and The Con Brio Ensemble, Hamilton has also performed with Ensemble Connect, NOVUS NY, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and A Far Cry, and has collaborated with pop artists including Vampire Weekend, Rostam, Bjork, Debbie Harry, FUN., Cults, and Becca Stevens. He is Assistant Program Director of the Musicambia program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he teaches string students.
A Nashville native, Hamilton has played at the Cooperstown, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Olympic, and Yellow Barn music festivals. In 2009 he received his Master of Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Timothy Eddy; his previous teachers include Felix Wang, Grace Bahng, and Anne Williams. During his fellowship with Ensemble Connect - a program of Carnegie Hall, Juilliard, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education - Hamilton was a visiting teaching artist at IS61 on Staten Island.
Though I'm classically trained, I like to play and teach all kinds of music. Recent lessons have explored everything from J.S. Bach's Cello Suites to the 12-bar blues. I enjoy working with all skill levels, and will strive to tailor my approach to your goals, while emphasizing the following:
*relaxed technique and proper posture
*organization of practice sessions, with special attention to how technique warmups relate to specific repertoire
*improvisation, no matter what style of music you play
*use of music theory and historical context to inform interpretation