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 Cellist Amy Ward Butler has been a member of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra since 1998. Amy received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees and the prestigious Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she studied with Steven Doane and Paul Katz. As a graduate student, she was Teacher's Assistant to Mr. Doane and was a co-founder of the Olivier Trio, the first piano trio in residence at Eastman, which performed at Eastman and in New York City.
Amy's eventual career in an opera orchestra was perhaps foreshadowed by performing with the Eastman Opera Theater and the New Jersey Opera as well as in Germany at the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele. Summers at Tanglewood provided opportunities to study with members of the Juilliard and Budapest Quartets, with cellist Yo-yo Ma, and with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur and Leonard Bernstein.
Since graduating from Eastman, Amy has played frequently in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as numerous smaller ensembles. Currently, she is the principal cellist of the McLean Orchestra, with whom she appeared in a performance of the Brahms Double Concerto last season. Since joining the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Amy has been able to pursue her love of chamber music by performing solo and chamber recitals throughout the Washington Metro area.
Ms. Butler plays on a Rafael and Antonio Gagliano cello made in Napoli in 1807.
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