Michael Mermagen

Michael Mermagen, cello, is currently Professor of Cello and coordinator of strings at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, after a twelve year tenure at the Catholic University of America. Mermagen made his debut at age sixteen with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after being the recipient of its Young Soloist Award. His principal teachers in college were Stephen Kates at the Peabody Institute and Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. Mermagen was a soloist with the National Orchestra of New York, where he held the prestigious Emanuel Feuermann principal cello chair. He has also performed in the Violoncello Society of New York Master Classes lead by Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker, and Bernard Greenhouse. Mermagen has toured and given recitals, concerto performances, master classes and chamber music performances around the world, most recently with the Aspen String Trio. As an artist-faculty member and alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Michael has been principal cellist of the Aspen Chamber Symphony for over twenty-five seasons. He was a featured performer on WQXR’s Concerts Plus, WNYC’s Around New York, APM’s Performance Today, and Live from WFMT Chicago, Kansas Public Radio, and NPR. In 2019, Mermagen released the first commercial recording of James Simon’s Arioso (1929) on CD Baby followed by a performance edition interpreted from the urtext which can be found on IMSLP. Michael also recorded and performed the Patrick Zimmerli Piano Trios for Arabesque label, after a celebrated debut of the same pieces at Seattle Chamber Music Society. He performs on a rare and ornamented Nicolo Gagliano cello made in Naples, 1774.