About this Artist

Born in France, CÉCILIA TSAN began playing the cello with the same teacher as her childhood friend Yo-Yo Ma. A Philosophy and Chinese major, she also graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, where she had studied with André Navarra. A prize-winner at the Barcelona, Florence, and Paris International competitions, she toured throughout the world with Rudolf Firkusny, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Michel Dalberto, Pascal Rogé, Pierre Amoyal, Augustin Dumay, Martin Chalifour, and others. 

Her recent solo concerts include the Suite from Memoirs of a Geisha by John Williams, Saint-Saëns and Elgar Cello Concertos, the Brahms Double Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. In 2012, she gave the world premiere of Eric Tanguy’s Piano Trio written for her and also gave the West Coast premiere of his Second Cello Concerto. 

She currently serves as Principal Cellist with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra and the LA Master Chorale. She has also recorded hundreds of movie soundtracks with John Williams, James Newton-Howard, James Horner, Randy Newman, Danny Elfman, and Alexandre Desplat, among others.

Cécilia, who was a member of her theater troupe in high school for years, also had the opportunity to perform as a cellist and an actress with members of the Comédie Française in Paris for nine months.

More recently she performed a piece by Hugh Levick, “The Messiah,” where she had to deliver the narration while playing the cello.