Sibylle
Johner, cellist, has performed extensively throughout North America
and Europe. Of a performance in Switzerland, the Landbote wrote, "whenever
her eloquent cello spoke, one would suddenly pay attention, and immediately
it became clear that a true artist was at work on this instrument."
Deeply committed to chamber music, Ms. Johner has been a member of
the Damocles Trio since 1996. Recent trio performances have included
an appearance on the Salisbury State University of Maryland Concert
Series, a celebration of the music of Ernesto Halffter at the Third
Street Music School Settlement, a performance at the 2000 Chamber
Music America Conference in New York City, an all-Spanish concert
at Merkin Concert Hall, a program of new music by Spanish composers
on the North River Music series at the Greenwich House Music School,
and participation in the inaugural event of the Foundation for Iberian
Music at the City University of New York's Graduate Center in honor
of Alicia de Larrocha. Many of the trio's Spanish-themed projects
have won the support of the Consulate General of Spain, Instituto
Cervantes, and the King Juan Carlos I Center at NYU.
Ms. Johner also was principal cellist in productions of “Le
Nozze di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” at the Caramoor
Center for Music and Arts and plays baroque cello regularly on the
BachWorks series directed by Anthony Newman. Recent Merkin Hall apperances
on baroque cello include concerts with harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire,
soprano Dana Hanchard and countertenor Bejun Mehta.
Ms. Johner is the string department chair person and a faculty member
at the Third Street Music School Settlement in NYC. In the summer
she taught at the Milwaukee Chamber Music Festival of the University
of Wisconsin and the MidAmerica Chamber Music Institute at the Ohio
Wesleyan University in Delaware, OH.
She is a winner of both the Drake and Zurich Conservatory soloist
competitions and recipient of the Dienemann, Ernst Göhner, and
Eubie Blake Scholarship Awards. She has studied music in Freiburg,
Germany, the Zurich Conservatory, Rutgers University, Drake University,
and The Juilliard School, where she was awarded a Doctor of Musical
Arts degree.
Among Ms. Johner’s teachers have been R.C. Baumberger, Marçal
Cervera, Walter Grimmer, Bernard Greenhouse, Stefan Kartman, and Harvey
Shapiro. She has studied chamber music with members of the Melos and
Juilliard Quartets, Jerome Lowenthal, Felix Galimir, Joseph Fuchs,
Myron Kartman, Samuel Sanders, Seymour Lipkin, Theodore Lettvin and
Janos Starker.
She participated in the Curso Internacional de Música in Tarragona,
Spain, worked with renowned pianist Felix Lavilla at the XVII Curso
Manuel de Falla in Granada, and has three years of training in Flamenco
dance, including master classes with Manuel Moreno.
In the past, Ms. Johner has been a founding member of the Medici Piano
Trio, the Botticelli Duo, and the Modigliani Quartet. In 2001 she
founded Catnap Treadmill with her husband, saxophonist Phil Greene.
Of a Mozart Quintet performance, the Delaware Gazette wrote, “the
pivot, or focus, was the cello, and the interplay between Johner and
the others was a delight to behold. It was music-making of the highest
order.”
