Katie Schlaikjer ~ Cello

Cellist Katie Schlaikjer is a member of the JUNO-winning Penderecki Quartet, quartet-in-residence at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. She was a member of the Colorado String Quartet from 2009 to 2013, and prior to that, cellist with the Avalon Quartet, award winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition and the Concert Artists Guild (NY). A consummate chamber musician and soloist, Ms. Schlaikjer has performed around the globe, with tours throughout Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Croatia, China, Australia, Columbia, Mexico and across Canada and the U.S, performing at the Kennedy Centre, the Beijing Concert Hall, The National Arts Centre, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and many more. 

As a chamber musician, Katie Schlaikjer has performed the complete Beethoven and Bartok quartets with both CSQ and PSQ, amongst an almost encyclopaedic range of quartet and chamber music repertoire, including over 100 new works written for the Penderecki Quartet. She has appeared in the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Aspen, and Caramoor festivals, as well as Festival of the Sound, Music from Salem, Ottawa Chamberfest, the annual Music Mountain festival (CT), and has recorded for Albany Records, Marquis Classics, and Elektra.  

Of Ms. Schlaikjer’s many solo appearances, recent engagements have included the premiere of J. Mark Scearce’s cello concerto “Aracana” with the University of Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, and Haydn’s D major cello concerto with the Wuhan Symphony Orchestra in China. 

Guiding young artists and cultivating a vibrant studio of award-winning students has been a career objective as well as a passion, with several of her pupils continuing to advanced institutions such as the Glenn Gould School and Juilliard.  She has taught at the University of Connecticut, the Hartt Music School, Bard Conservatory and the New England Conservatory, and conducted masterclasses at the renowned UNAM (University) in Mexico City, Lynn University in Florida, the Cleveland Institute, the Colorado Quartet’s Soundfest, and Charles Castleman’s Quartet program.  At Wilfrid Laurier University, where she has been Artist-in-Residence with the Penderecki Quartet since 2013 where she teaches cello and chamber music. 

Ms Schlaikjer received her Doctoral and Master’s degrees from Stony Brook University and her Bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory where her teachers included Timothy Eddy and Laurence Lesser.