The Cheney Cello Trio

The Cheney Cello Trio based in Salt Lake City, Utah has been playing concerts since 2008. Elliott Cheney, faculty cellist at the University of Utah, holds the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello Performance from the University of Texas at Austin. Elliott has been teaching cello, chamber music and music appreciation at the University of Utah since 2000. He and his wife, Carey Cheney, also a Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello Performance, have had a large, private cello studio in Salt Lake for the past 15 years. Carey works also training and mentoring young cello teachers through the auspices of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. Carey and Elliott met in a fairytale-like circumstance in Germany long ago, while they were both studying with Andre Navarra. Since this time they have traveled widely as part of their careers as cellists - Costa Rica, Brazil, New Zealand, England, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico and Canada.
The youngest member of the trio, Livingston Cheney, is a veteran cellist of 13 years, although he is only sixteen. He too has traveled most of the US states and many provinces of Canada to participate in musical workshops and festivals. He was cellist of the Synergy String Quartet for two years, and continues to collaborate with other young musicians at home and abroad.
The trio has given two world premiere performances, one of Take it Queasy, Greasy by Adam Silverman (2010), and a work for cello trio and piano written for them, Trilogy (2010) by Utah composer, Crawford Gates.
During the 2011-12 season, the Cheney Cello Trio has performed in Pocatello, Idaho at the First Presbyterian Church to benefit local music scholarships, and at formal concerts at the University of Utah School of Music both in May 2012 and September 2012.
They were also guest artists at the National Cello Institute held at Pomona College in the Los Angeles, CA area, at the Gore Bay Museum and Cultural Centre in Gore Bay, Ontario, Canada, and at the University of Wisconsin’s American Suzuki Institute in Stevens Point, WI.
This past February 2012, The Cheney Cello Trio was featured in an hour-long live broadcast on the local NPR station in Provo, UT KBYU-FM 89.1 called “Highway 89”. This was simultaneously broadcast live on the Sirius FM satellite network as well as being rebroadcast a week later.
Most recently, the Trio flew to Mexico City, Mexico to be guest artists at the 2012 Festival Internationale Cedros-Universidad Panamericana. The Cheney Trio will be featured as guest artists at the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute in June 2012, and again at the American Suzuki Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, WI, in August 2012.