Biography
Michael Reynolds, cellist
Michael Reynolds, Director of the School of Music at Boston University, has had a distinguished career as a performer, teacher, and administrator. As one of the leading cellists of his generation, he spent forty years as a founding musician of the Muir String Quartet. His quartet career took him to the White House, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Paris’ Salle Gaveau and the Louvre, Munich’s Herculeshalle, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Sydney’s Opera House, the Kennedy Center, and other famed venues. It included over fifty tours of Europe and the Far East as well as performances throughout North America, and collaborations with such luminaries as Benny Goodman, Phyllis Curtin, Gary Burton, Menachem Pressler, Emanual Ax, David Soyer, Joseph Kalichstein, Michael Tree, Carol Wincenc, Richard Stoltzman, David Shifrin, and many others. Some recording awards include two Grand Prix du Disques and the Gramophone Award on EMI, and a Grammy nomination and a Grammy Award on EcoClassics, a label Reynolds founded. As a soloist, he has also recorded the six Bach Suites on EcoClassics.
Mr. Reynolds has been Professor of Cello at Boston University since 1983 where he teaches many who are destined to or have established musical careers. In addition, his interest in teaching more widely has led to his establishing several festivals for young and amateur musicians where he serves not only as Director but as a beloved coach. It has also led to his establishing the Classics for Kids Foundation (classicsforkids.org), which provides matching grants to string programs throughout the United States serving at-risk children. His devotion to bringing new converts to classical music began as a teen-aged street musician in Philadelphia, where he and other Curtis Institute of Music students entertained passersby in a scene that continues to the present day.
A native of Montana where Reynolds established a chamber music festival and society in Bozeman, he is also an avid outdoorsman and flyfisherman. In this latter capacity, he has been featured in Fly Rod and Reel, the American Flyfisherman, and the Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.