Anne Martindale Williams
Principal Cello
Pittsburgh Symphony Association Chair
Anne Martindale Williams is principal cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and holds the Pittsburgh Symphony Association Chair. She has enjoyed a successful career as principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 1979, having joined the orchestra in 1976. Throughout her tenure with the orchestra, she has often been featured as soloist both in Pittsburgh and on tour in New York at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Williams was soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony in the Pittsburgh premier of The Giving Tree conducted by the composer, Lorin Maazel. In 2015, she performed with renowned mezzo-soprano, Jamie Barton, Jake Heggie’s “The Work at Hand”, a work co-commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and Carnegie Hall. She has also collaborated with guest artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, André Previn, the Emerson Quartet, Lynn Harrell, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham and Pinchas Zukerman in numerous chamber music performances. She made her London debut performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic, Andre Previn conducting. Her solo in The Swan on the Pittsburgh Symphony’s recording of Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns was described by Gramophone critic Edward Greenfield as “…the most memorable performance of all.”
Anne Williams divides her time between the orchestra, teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, and solo and chamber music performances. She has appeared in several nationally televised productions including “Concertos,” produced by the BBC and “Previn and the Pittsburgh,” produced by WQED. She has given master classes at many universities and festivals throughout the country, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra, the Joseph Gingold Festival in Miami, SUNY at Stony Brook, Manhattan School of Music, the New World Symphony, the National Orchestral Institute, Aspen, Credo at Oberlin College and the Masterworks Festival. She also has performed at many of America’s prestigious summer music festivals including Aspen, Marlboro, Caramoor, Skaneateles, Maui, Rockport Festivals in Massachusetts and Maine, Grand Teton, Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Orcas Island, and Mainly Mozart in San Diego. For many years she has enjoyed performing throughout the country with her Piano Trio, which includes her good friends Andrés Cárdenes and David Deveau.
Anne Williams has performed numerous times as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, performing Schumann’s Concerto in A minor, Tippett’s Triple Concerto, Previn’s Reflections, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Cello, Oboe, Bassoon and Orchestra, Walton’s Cello Concerto, Strauss’s Don Quixote, Bloch’s Schelomo, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain, as well as Saint-Saëns’ Concerto No. 1 and Brahms’ Double Concerto. In recent seasons, she was featured in Haydn’s Concerto in C and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Williams studied with Orlando Cole. Her Tecchler cello was made in Rome in 1701. She resides with her family in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.
