by Mike Telin
A recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, ChamberFest Cleveland cellist Oliver Herbert’s career spans solo performance, chamber music, and curatorial projects.
Those projects have included concert curations for Deutschlandfunk Raderbergkonzerte and the TICA Festival in Hong Kong. He has premiered works by composers Andrew Moses, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, and Helena Winkelman. In 2025, he was selected for the Orpheum Foundation’s development program for young soloists.
Since making his ChamberFest Cleveland debut as a “Rising Star” in 2016, Oliver Herbert has appeared regularly at the Festival. This week he returns for concerts on June 25, 26, and 27. More information and tickets are available online.
I caught up with Herbert by phone in Chicago, where he was preparing to play the Shostakovich first concerto with the Grant Park Orchestra. I began by asking him how ChamberFest Cleveland has helped him advance his career.
Oliver Herbert: ChamberFest played a major role for me when I was a Rising Star. It was my first opportunity to work in chamber music at the highest level, and that was a new experience.
When I first came they trusted me a lot, and put me in the position of playing as an equal alongside these incredible musicians. That in itself gave me a great head start. When I started going to other chamber music festivals I felt very prepared and capable of doing that.
I also played a lot of different repertoire, especially in those first years. I remember one summer when I played some thirty pieces within three weeks. I look back on that with such gratitude because it was a real learning experience. Now ten years later, many things have come full circle.
First of all, I have ongoing collaborations or friendships with colleagues I met during those first summers — people who have appeared in different contexts in my musical life other than Chamberfest. People that I see all over the world and play with all the time.
I still consider myself pretty young, but now when I come back to the festival, I get to meet and work with people who are younger than me. That’s a fun generational shift, and something I really enjoy.
Mike Telin: Who are some of those people?
OH: Alexi Kenney is a dear friend of mine. And people like Yura Lee and Julie Albers. Of course Diana and Roman are good friends. I also met the tenor Karim Sulayman at ChamberFest during one of my first summers there, and every time I come to Chicago we get together — we’re actually getting dinner tonight. I’m sure I’m leaving out many names.
MT: What excites you about the programs you’ll be playing this time around?
OH: There’s a lot of pieces I haven’t played before, and that’s exciting. I don’t have any experience with Kareem Roustom’s music. I love playing works by living composers, so it will be nice to discover somebody new.
I’m looking forward to Olli Mustonen’s Nonet II. I recently had the pleasure of working with him in Germany. We played several Beethoven sonatas together and read a bunch of music with him at the Kronberg Academy, where I’ve been part of a professional studies program. He’s such a lovely person with a very interesting musical mind. It will be fun to play his piece knowing a little bit about the personality behind the notes.
Reynaldo Hahn is also new to me. I’ve heard great things about his Piano Quintet but I haven’t played it, so I’m looking forward to that. The Schubert Trout Quintet I’ve played the Schubert “Trout” Quintet many times and it’s always nice.
I’m also looking forward to seeing some colleagues that I haven’t played with in a while, like violist Teng Li. She’s in the Chicago Symphony now and I bump into her here sometimes. Also violinist Geneva Lewis. Everybody that I’m playing with is really great.
MT: I understand your instrument has a connection to ChamberFest.
OH: I play on a very special 18th century cello which used to be played by Antonio Janigro. It has a special personality, a noble sound, and is a very versatile instrument which not only has a lot of power for concertos but also is flexible and adaptable for chamber music. It’s on loan to me from the Janigro family who I met in Cleveland through ChamberFest. Antonio Janigro’s son, Damir, and his wife Kim are Cleveland locals.
MT: How do you decide what concertos play where and when?
A lot of it happens by circumstance. Oftentimes the repertory is predetermined, so you either you say “Yes, I can do it,” or “No.”
Then sometimes there are cases like the Marin Symphony. A couple years ago I played the Elgar Concerto with them, and when they invited me this time they said, ‘We’d love to have you back, let’s discuss repertoire together.’ Because I knew I had many Shostakovich performances going on during this period of time, so I asked them what they thought about that, and they were up for it.
MT: What else is happening in your musical life?
Over the last couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot more programming and curating programs, especially in chamber music. Thinking about combinations of works and putting projects together.
Recently I curated a program with some multimedia and silent film elements called “PRESSURE / DRUCK” at Kronberg Academy. It centered around the psychological aspect of people coming into power, whether it be political or otherwise. Once they’ve built enough success, the pressure that comes with maintaining that can take them on a path that they might never have imagined.
The music was Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello, Shostakovich’s String Quartet Number 14, and Schoenberg’s, Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, which is an amazing piece with text by Lord Byron. We used short clips of silent films from that period that I cut with my filmmaker friend which created suggestions or impressions of different aspects of that story about what the human being goes through.
The first chapter with the Hindemith Sonata was a film about ambition. The second chapter with the Shostakovich was called The Unhealable Wound. And the film for the Schoenberg is about a psychological break.
At this point in my musical life it’s important for me to feel that I can create something that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. And bringing people together is really exciting for me.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com June 21, 2026
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