Zach Carstensen

John Sharp and Don Quixote: Chicago Symphony’s principal cellist returns to a classic role

‘It was intimidating and it was thrilling. That is what I remember about my first audition week’, John Sharp says, reflecting on his first moments with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. ‘To see Solti conduct and the way the orchestra played – it was really incredibly exciting’.

Sharp, now the CSO’s principal cellist, began his musical journey far from the concert stage. Growing up in Texas, it was a stroke of luck that led him to the cello. ‘It was complete chance, really. I raised my hand’, he recalls, thinking back to his early days with the cello. ‘I was trying all kinds of things and ended up choosing the cello’. The choice propelled him on a professional journey that, starting on 24 October, will see him perform Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with the CSO under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles.

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