Adult Cello Academy
A word from Artistic Director, Ben Fried
As a cello teacher, I have found a special connection with my adult students. I have so much respect for these serious musicians. Whether it is continuing studies from their younger years or pursuing something entirely new, taking up classical music studies alongside a full-time career is no small feat. I empathize when I hear about their prior experiences, such as playing on recitals full of younger students and/or being dismissed by teachers. High-level adult learning is not only easily possible, but remarkably rewarding for the teacher and student personally and intellectually. The Fried Music Adult Cello Academy will run Sunday afternoons in order to further encourage a strong sense of community between like-minded, music lovers. We regular attendance to reap the full reward of progressive learning. We uphold our students in the highest regard, addressing all students with seriousness, care, and respect.
Meet the Coaches
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Eastman School of Music (BM; PC), Mannes School of Music (MM), USC Thornton School of Music (DMA)
Beginning his musical studies on piano at age two, Ben Fried displayed a penchant for music immediately, falling in love with cello only a year later. Hans Jensen, celebrated pedagogue and faculty at Northwestern University, recognized Ben’s talent and love of cello and took him in as a private student when he was only eleven years old. His mentors were Steven Doane, Timothy Eddy, and Andrew Shulman.
A passionate chamber musician, Dr. Fried founded the Monterey Piano Trio with his wife Connie Kim-Sheng and colleague Strauss Shi. Meeting as students at USC Thornton School of Music, the group connected through a shared love of the incredibly profound repertoire for the piano trio. Within months of their formation, the trio was invited as artist-in-residence at the Heifetz International Music Institute and has performed throughout the Los Angeles area to much acclaim.
An extremely passionate pedagogue, his students have been successful in many competitions and orchestra auditions. He is the cofounder of Fried Music and dean of its Pre-College Program, a non-profit full scholarship program for talented and young musicians.
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Juan-Salvador Carrasco enjoys a multifaceted career as a cellist, composer, and teacher. He is the cellist and co-founder of the groundbreaking classical band, Astral Mixtape; he has composed multiple chamber works for Salastina Music Society; he has written original soundtracks for award-winning short films in collaboration with Santa Monica College; and he recently has joined the cello section of New West Symphony. Juan-Salvador is also a passionate cello pedagogue - he teaches a private studio of cellists and is on faculty at Fried Music in Alhambra, CA.
Juan-Salvador’s band, Astral Mixtape, collaboratively create and perform original compositions and arrangements using a unique line-up of two violins, cello, piano, synthesizer, and electronics. The band won the nationwide 2023 Astral Artists competition and the 2024 Beverly Hills National Auditions. They have performed throughout the US and Canada, and have opened for Time For Three, Anne Akiko Meyers, and Orli Shaham as part of the Vancouver Symphony’s USA Music and Arts Festival.
From 2018-2020, Juan-Salvador was the cellist of the Los Angeles Orchestra Fellowship. As part of the fellowship, Juan-Salvador performed in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, mentored the young talents at ICYOLA (Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles), and studied with Ralph Kirshbaum at the University of Southern California. In July 2019, the four LA Orchestra Fellows performed Michael Abels’s Urban Legends, a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, in Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Juan-Salvador has performed chamber music with Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill (NY Phil principal clarinet), Philip Setzer (Emerson Quartet violinist), and Robert Chen (Chicago Symphony Concertmaster). As a soloist, Juan-Salvador has performed the Schumann, Dvorak, Elgar, Haydn C Major, Saint-Saëns, and Vivaldi Double Cello Concertos with orchestras in both the U.S. and Mexico.
Juan-Salvador has attended summer festivals such as the Banff Centre’s Evolution Classical Program, The Heifetz Chamber Music Seminar, Bowdoin Music Festival, London Master Classes (England), PyeongChang Music Festival (Korea), and the Perlman Music Program. Juan-Salvador joined the Heifetz Ensemble in Residence program in the spring of 2022.
Juan-Salvador was awarded First Prize at USC Thornton’s 2019 Solo Bach Competition and has competed as a semi-finalist in the Nationwide Sphinx Competition.
As a composer, Juan-Salvador has composed and performed the soundtracks for many award- winning short films, including Azizam, Leaving the Factory, Never Silly, and Retakes. His original compositions have been performed in Salastina’s chamber music series and at the Heifetz Music Institute.
Juan-Salvador has a M.M. and a G.C. from USC’s Thornton School of Music, and a B.M. from Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. His past cello teachers include Ralph Kirshbaum, Hans Jorgen Jensen, Ron Leonard, and Eleonore Schoenfeld.
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Colburn School of Music (BM), USC Thornton School of Music (MM)
A prize winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Ben Solomonow has been featured on the American national radio stations WFMT and NPR, and has been invited to perform solo recitals, chamber recitals, and concertos in halls including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ravinia's Bennett-Gordon Hall, and the Seoul Arts Center.
As an active chamber musician, he has been a guest artist at the Ojai Music Festival, Festival Mozaic, the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Red Rocks Chamber Music Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
Having completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees at the Colburn Conservatory of Music under Clive Greensmith, Solomonow continued to pursue a Graduate Certificate under Ralph Kirshbaum at the University of Southern California. Other influential teachers have included Hans Jensen and Arnold Steinhardt.
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Hailing from San Diego, California, Jonathan Lin has been a passionate cellist since the age of nine. His formal education in cello performance began with a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Dr. William Grubb and graduated in 2018. He continued his advanced studies at the Manhattan School of Music, earning a Master of Music degree in 2020 with Professor Philippe Muller. Furthering his expertise, Jonathan obtained a Graduate Certificate from the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in 2022, studying with Professor Andrew Shulman.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jonathan expanded his musical horizons through private studies with Robert Demaine and Ronald Leonard. In 2024, he had the privilege of working with Richard Aaron at the Aspen Music Festival. His previous teachers include esteemed artists such as Joon Sung Jun and Yao Zhao.
Jonathan's dedication to his craft is evident in his participation in master classes with renowned musicians including Yehuda Hanani, Adriana Contino, Brooklyn Rider Quartet, Robert Demaine, Brinton Smith, Lynn Harrell, Johannes Moser, Hans Jorgen Jensen, Ani Kavafian, and Steven Isserlis. He has also benefited from the guidance of Timothy Eddy, Amit Peled, Michel Strauss, Andres Diaz, Anne Williams, Minji Kim, Tom Landschoot, John Walz, and Alan Rafferty.
His chamber music coaching has included instruction from members of the American String Quartet, Ariel String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, as well as distinguished musicians such as Ko Iwasaki, Richard Slavich, Nicholas Mann, Jeffrey Irvine, the Shanghai Quartet, Yura Lee, and Ralph Kirshbaum.
Jonathan's festival experiences are extensive, having participated in the Idyllwild Summer Music Festival, Montecito International Music Festival, Madeline Island Chamber Music, Heifetz International Music Institute, Josef Gingold Chamber Music Festival, Festival MusicAlp, Orford Music Academy, Domaine Forget, and the Aspen Music Festival.
An accomplished performer, Jonathan has garnered numerous accolades, including 2nd Prize at CCM’s Undergraduate Instrumental (Baur) Competition in 2016, Musical Merit Foundation of Greater San Diego Competition Scholarships in 2017 and 2021, 2nd Prize in the Strings Division of San Diego's Music Scholarship Council Competition in 2021, Best Contemporary Piece Performance prize at the 2022 La Jolla Young Artist Competition, and 1st Prize in the USC Thornton School of Music's Solo Bach Competition in 2024. He was also a recipient of the CCM’s Werner Scholarship in 2018.
Jonathan’s orchestral experience includes serving as the principal cellist for the San Diego Civic Youth Orchestra, with notable performances such as the Side-By-Side concerts with the San Diego Symphony in 2013 and 2014. Additionally, he was a member of the Music For All’s Honor Orchestra of America in 2014.
Currently, Jonathan is a substitute cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New World Symphony and held the position of Principal Cellist with the California Young Artists Symphony from 2022 to 2024.
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Before he was 20, Juilliard-trained cellist Keith Williams had performed as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra principal, in the five of the most globally iconic concert halls: Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Boston’s Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall. Known for his “dramatic embrace of his instrument” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) with his playing praised by the Boston Globe for its “fierce intensity and focused vigor” his performing career has been recognized with top prizes in numerous competitions, including First Prize at Burbank Philharmonic’s Hennings-Fischer Young Artist Competition, winning the prestigious Beverly Hills National Auditions with his duo partner, pianist Dr. Andrew Boyle, and most recently being one of ten cellists worldwide selected for the Semifinals of the 2025 Washington International Competition. He enjoys playing the standard and 20th-Century concerto repertoire with orchestras across the United States, featured recently in California as soloist with the Biola Symphony Orchestra (Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations) and the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra (Barber’s Cello Concerto.) As an award-winning chamber musician, graduating with Honors in chamber music with his Master of Music from University of Southern California, Williams has shared the stage with the critically acclaimed Verona Quartet and UCLA’s Che-Yen Chen of the Ehnes Quartet, and is a founding member of the Los Angeles-based Biola Piano Trio. He has worked with members from the esteemed Amernet, Borromeo, Brentano, Cleveland, Colorado, Juilliard, Orion, and Shanghai string quartets, as well as renowned artists such as Robert McDonald, Jeffrey Kahane, Max Levinson, Glenn Dichterow, Augustin Dumay, Yura Lee and the Boston Trio.
Festival highlights include the Taos Festival and the cello fellowship to the Foulger International Music Festival, performing in Lincoln Center, as well as Juilliard ChamberFest. His experience as former principal cellist of three different orchestras has helped his students secure their own principal positions, having played under the baton of luminaries such as Carl St. Clare, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Itzahk Perlman, Nicholas Mcgegan, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. Dedicated to education, Keith teaches the next generation of artists as Adjunct Professor of Cello at Biola University, and also founded College of Cello, a school tailor-made for adult cellists. His students have also achieved success in attending prestigious music festivals, including Aspen Music Festival and Sarasota Music Festival. Keith completed his cello studies at the University of Southern California with internationally celebrated soloist Ralph Kirshbaum for his Master of Music Degree, with honors in Chamber Music, and with world-renowned pedagogue Timothy Eddy for his Bachelor’s Degree at the Juilliard School. Excited about sharing the riches of classical music with anyone, Keith has played over fifty concerts coast-to-coast with Groupmuse, a house-concert organization. Keith also regularly performs with the Boyle/Williams duo, as well as with his wife and duo partner, pianist Sarah Rasmussen, on Music Mornings, hosted by LA Music Lessons, a concert series for families with young children.
Learn more about the program
All the information you need to sign up at the link below
Technique Class
Cello Ensemble
FAQs
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The program will be from 4:00 PM - 5:45 PM on Sundays. The program will take place every Sunday (except on certain holidays). Tuition is $300/month for 4 Chamber classes and 4 Technique classes. Regular commitment is strongly recommended.
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As long as you have your own cello, you are qualified for our program. It is also encouraged to be taking private lessons (does not have to be through us). Although, we do offer private lessons on a bi-monthly basis to many of the adult students in our program. The program’s goal to create a community of like-minded music lovers who are eager to learn more about the incredible art form that is classical music.
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No problem! We can work with you. All you need is a love of music and the ability to read music and practice.
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Our Adult Cello Academy has ongoing registration, so you can join at anytime! Email us at info@friedmusic.com or fill our inquiry form.
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As long as there is room availability, you may come earlier or stay later to practice!