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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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.
