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. As a soloist and chamber musician, Thea has worked with composers such as Antoine Bueger, Reiko Fueting, and Sofia Gubaidulina, and performed at Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center Atrium, and Carnegie Hall, among others. Her projects have been funded by organizations such as Chamber Music America, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
In the 2023/24 season she presented a solo program at PAC-NYC, performed the US premiere of a piece by Karen Tanaka, played with Japanese Breakfast and served as their NYC string leader, and premiered a new piece by Dante Cucurullo for cello and orchestra with the ADCA Symphony where she serves as principal cellist. This season Thea is excited to be joining Telos Consort as their newest member, premiering a work for solo cello by Alyssa Regent with New Chamber Ballet at the Clark Institute, and presenting 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.
As a composer, writer, and artist her work 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. She has had works shared in Rivulet Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
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.