Selma Gokcen, cello

When Selma Gokcen performed for SBCMS: [July 1969] [Sep 1974] [Jul 1976] [Sep 1978]

Mañanica Era -- Enrique Granados (1867-1916)

Chants d'Espagne -- Joaquin Nin (1879-1949)

Tarantella, Op.23 -- Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901)

Six Studies in English Folksong -- Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958)

Waltz Impromptu No. 1 - The Gothenburg Waltz -- Julian Jacobson (b. 1947)

Danse Orientale, Op.2 No. 2 -- Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

Songs & Dances, Op.84 -- Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)

Virtuoso cellist SELMA GOKCEN is an exciting and dynamic performer whose appearances consistently earn her acclaim from audiences and critics alike. She is the winner of several national competitions in the USA, including the Bryan Award of the North Carolina Symphony, the Houston Symphony Young Artists' Competition, the North American Young Artists' Competition, and the Flagler Mathews Auditions.

Miss Gokcen has appeared with L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Presidential Symphony in Ankara, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Aspen Philharmonia, among others. Her recital appearances have taken her to such cities as Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Charleston, S.C., and to Belgium, Italy, and Turkey. In South America, she has toured under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.

In addition to solo appearances, Miss Gokcen is an accomplished chamber musician and has participated in the Chamber Music West Festival in San Francisco, the Southeastern Music Festival, the Hindemith Festival in Oregon, and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. She is a frequent guest in Spain, where she has performed with the Granados Quartet and in gala events honoring Spain's greatest living composer Xavier Montsalvatge.

She holds the Doctorate of Musical Arts, as well as a Bachelor's and Master's degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Leonard Rose, Channing Robbins, William Lincer, and Robert Mann. She was awarded a First Prize from the Geneva Conservatory of Music as a pupil of Guy Fallot, and has also studied privately with the late Pierre Fournier.

Miss Gokcen currently resides in London, where she is a member of the faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Her first compact disc, recorded with pianist John Lenehan for the VDE-Gallo label, is entitled Songs and Dances. She was recently invited to record the complete works for cello by the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge.

"An outstanding talent with a warm, flowing, mature understanding of the music." -- Palm Beach Times

"Miss Gokcen displayed a wonderfully clear tone, beautiful and consistent throughout the instrument's register. Her handling of the more difficult demands of the Tchaikovsky Variations had that special appeal of an artist who has her technique under firm control and uses it for artistic purposes and not as an end in itself." -- The Houston Chronicle

Revised 4/10/01