Photo credit Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
Michael Unterman enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician and orchestral cellist, primarily as a core member of A Far Cry, Boston Baroque, the Cramer Quartet, and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. He has received critical praise for his “soulful and sultry solos,” “nuanced, sensitive, and wholly gorgeous collaboration” (Classical Scene), and “heroic continuo” (Parterre Box) and has been featured on three Grammy nominated albums. Other recent performances include projects with the Carmel Bach Festival, the Knights, Ruckus, Staunton Music Festival, and the Toronto Symphony. Michael is also formerly a member of the Portland Baroque Orchestra and the artistic director of Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF).
Artistic direction and arts administration has been an important part of Michael’s work. He cut his teeth in concert programming and production with A Far Cry whose members act as co-artistic directors. As a frequent curator and production lead, his projects have been praised as “just the kind of imaginative artistic agenda that more groups should be prodded to try” (The Boston Globe), “the way good programming should proceed” (Arts Fuse), and “gorgeous and remarkably unified” (Washington Post). His work directing 5BMF from 2019 to 2023 included the NYC premieres of Castle of our Skins and Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, Volume III of the Five Borough Songbook (a songwriting project comprised of 15 new commissions), and the production of concert films including the Argus Quartet’s noise/SILENCE, and Terra Nova, a co-commission with Hub New Music from Oracle Hysterical. Michael also writes extensively: program notes for Tafelmusik and grants for multiple groups, earning major grant support from the NEA, the Melon and Barr Foundations, multiple state and city arts councils, and many others.
Michael studied cello at the New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School with Laurence Lesser, Natasha Brofsky, and Phoebe Carrai, and was a Fulbright Scholar to Barcelona, Spain, where he studied with Lluis Claret and the Quartetto Casals. His early mentors and musical role models include his longtime cello teacher Judy Fraser, quartet coach Heilwig von Koenigslow, his mother and pianist-collaborator Kathy Bjorseth, and Tom and Isobel Rolston, the former directors of the Banff Centre, all of whom instilled an enduring motivation to seek out and bring about nurturing environments for music and musicians.
Artistic direction and arts administration has been an important part of Michael’s work. He cut his teeth in concert programming and production with A Far Cry whose members act as co-artistic directors. As a frequent curator and production lead, his projects have been praised as “just the kind of imaginative artistic agenda that more groups should be prodded to try” (The Boston Globe), “the way good programming should proceed” (Arts Fuse), and “gorgeous and remarkably unified” (Washington Post). His work directing 5BMF from 2019 to 2023 included the NYC premieres of Castle of our Skins and Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, Volume III of the Five Borough Songbook (a songwriting project comprised of 15 new commissions), and the production of concert films including the Argus Quartet’s noise/SILENCE, and Terra Nova, a co-commission with Hub New Music from Oracle Hysterical. Michael also writes extensively: program notes for Tafelmusik and grants for multiple groups, earning major grant support from the NEA, the Melon and Barr Foundations, multiple state and city arts councils, and many others.
Michael studied cello at the New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School with Laurence Lesser, Natasha Brofsky, and Phoebe Carrai, and was a Fulbright Scholar to Barcelona, Spain, where he studied with Lluis Claret and the Quartetto Casals. His early mentors and musical role models include his longtime cello teacher Judy Fraser, quartet coach Heilwig von Koenigslow, his mother and pianist-collaborator Kathy Bjorseth, and Tom and Isobel Rolston, the former directors of the Banff Centre, all of whom instilled an enduring motivation to seek out and bring about nurturing environments for music and musicians.