Thea Mesirow is a cellist, educator, composer, and artist. She was co-executive director and cellist of Quartet121, “a posse of rugged individualists” (New York Music Daily), was the cellist of The Nouveau Classical Project, and one half of the “hypnotic and engaging” (Cleveland Classical) Berrow Duo.
Recent performances include presenting a solo program at PAC-NYC, performing the US premiere of a piece by Karen Tanaka, playing with Japanese Breakfast and serving as their NYC string leader, and premiering a new piece by Dante Cucurullo for cello and orchestra with the ADCA Symphony where she serves as principal cellist. In the 2024/25 season Thea joined Telos Consort as their newest member, premiered a work for solo cello by Alyssa Regent with New Chamber Ballet at the Clark Institute, and presented Labyrinth, a program of solo cello pieces written for her, including a piece of her own, at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in NYC before traveling to LA to perform the program at ARC Pasadena. In this 2025/26 season, she is expanding her project, shared residues, to include a small ensemble, presenting a series of concerts with the Chamber Music Society as a member of Telos Consort, joining the Tilted Head Ensemble for a performance of premieres, and playing new works for soprano and ensemble by ICEBERG New Music.
Her work as a composer, writer, and artist explores two large ideas: the temporary community created by concert spaces, and the ways in which women’s emotional and physical autonomy and agency is restricted. Her current project, shared residues, explores these two ideas simultaneously by asking an audience to interact with sound-making sculptures inspired by the relationship between Rodin and his student Camille Claudel, while Mesirow responds to the sounds they create. She has had works shared in Rivulet Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Her projects have been funded by organizations such as Chamber Music America, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
A passionate educator, she teaches with the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Washington Heights Community Conservatory, and the NYU composition department, alongside her private studio. She has held lectures and workshops at Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, Tulane University, and the CUNY Graduate Center, among others. Thea holds a BFA from CalArts where she studied with Erika Duke, a master’s from Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Fred Sherry, and an Artist Diploma from NYU where she studied performance and pedagogy with Marion Feldman.