If cellist Sterling Elliott had a choice, every spare moment when not playing or rehearsing would be spent under the hood of a car.
"If I had it my way and I was in my garage at my parents’ home in Virginia, I would be working on cars. I love building cars. It’s a big passion of mine."
Unfortunately, living in New York where he attends the Juilliard School makes this impossible. But it does not stop him from craving the opportunity to tinker with his Honda Acura RSX.
"It’s a little, simple, small hatchback, an Acura RSX that I’ve souped-up into a little toy race car."
Tinkering with machinery was his first love and as a child he had ambitions to be an engineer.
"The desire to understand the mechanisms and the inner workings of gadgets and toys sort of led to me learning how to drive a stick shift as a teenager, and just becoming fascinated with the how. And I really just fell head first into the world of cars."
But at the same time he began to win national music competitions and started to think that music, something that has been part of his life since before he was born, could be the career path for him.
He made his concert debut at age 7, but looking back can see he did not really fully grasp the significance of that or the perceived risk.
Elliott began to get some "pretty significant concert opportunities" with major symphonies and got the experience of performing as a soloist.
"It was really at the age of 13 or 14 that was a turning point for me. It’s when it really started to dawn on me, again, the impact and significance of what I was able to do and what the potential trajectory could be for me as a musician."
So instead of following the engineering path, he entered Juilliard to study the cello, an instrument he says was picked out for him rather than by him.
"The story goes that my mum, being a violin teacher, when she started having children, she wanted to have a family string quartet. And I am the youngest of all my siblings, meaning that the upper string roles were filled by the time my mum was pregnant with me. So when she was pregnant with me, she went to the music store to get a cello for who was about to be her little cellist, which ended up being me."
When Elliott turned 3 his mother gave him the cello to learn. He has been told he was not fond of it at all in the beginning, as he wanted to play the violin like his older siblings.
"My mum convinced me with a little white lie at the time that she told me that cellists made more money. And apparently, money really speaks to a 3-year-old, and so that was quite effective."
When he was 5 he joined the family quartet and they started performing. That was a turning point for Elliott, who then fell in love with the cello.
"I mean, of course, the timbre and the warmth of the instrument, and the way in which it relates to us as humans in terms of the warmth and timbre of the human voice, and its range as well from treble to bass and everything that the cello can encapsulate.
"Specifically, playing the string quartet, I just really was fond of the role of being the rhythm keeper, or again, just the bass lead, and being the foundation of both sound and harmony throughout the group. It felt quite satisfying to have such a central role."
Taking the cello seriously as a teenager was not always easy.
"So around that time, as a young teenager grappling with puberty, with that comes a whole wave of self-consciousness which, for me, fully extended into performing and stage anxiety. And, of course, the doubts of whether this particular role, again, being a soloist or even a musician at all, is necessarily good for me or what people think of me when I’m on stage.
"It was quite a difficult time to surpass for a number of years, to be honest."
Those anxieties and doubts are something all musicians learn to live with, he has realised. It is important to remember why he plays and performs, he says.
"It’s not necessarily to please a judge or a critic, but rather to share a rather important message that only we can share in that specific way."
In the eight years of study he has seen a significant growth in not only his performance as a musician but also as a human.
"Especially with the peers that are there and the mentors, I feel like they teach you how to be a generous artist and a citizen first, just because that sort of directly ties into music making and collaboration.
"It’s been a really wonderful environment to be in for the past seven years and I will certainly miss it after the end of this year."
Completing his master’s last year was significant, as it signalled the end of classes and student life as he knew it.
"It really felt like graduating from my master’s was when I left a significant portion of the student identity behind. And it’s been really great to step into exactly that role as a fully-fledged professional and have an authoritative voice and ideas when asked for them."
He had thought entering the world of professional music would be quite daunting, but instead he has found it very welcoming.
"But it’s something I feel I’ve personally really flourished in. The aspect of really becoming your own teacher and just having your own validity, to get your own thoughts and ideas and the way that you project them and suggest them and teach them even."
He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Programme, in partnership with the Sphinx Organisation. Elliott describes the instrument as his soul mate which he fell in love with at first sight, feeling "immediately connected", a feeling which has only deepened as the years have passed.
"I’ve named her Ginger. And she’s been, again, my loyal companion for quite some time now."
He travels with Ginger in the seat next to him wherever he goes.
"I do think that there are deepening, deepening layers. Layers of tone and colour and nuance to be found, which is just, it seems like a limitless platform."
His career has been helped by his success in competitions. In 2021 he was the Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition.
Last year he joined YCAT (Young Musicians Artists Trust) as the YCAT–Music Masters Robey Artist and this year announced as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist 2024-26.
As part of his YCAT residency he got to travel to the United Kingdom for the first time to perform, describing it as a "tremendous experience".
"It marked my first performance as a solo artist abroad. I did a whole tour across the UK, and it was just the first time I really got to share my voice again as a solo artist to a larger audience. America is quite large, but to go overseas felt quite tremendous. And to receive the support, both in numbers and in enthusiasm, as I did throughout the entire tour, to cities and countries I had never been to before, to just receive such love was really unimaginably special."
While in the UK he met British-based New Zealand violinist Benjamin Baker, who is a former YCAT musician and the artistic director of the At the World’s Edge festival in the Queenstown Lakes District.
Baker suggested coming out to New Zealand and learning more about the festival. Elliott was excited to take part, looking forward to expanding his horizons and performing with musicians such as British clarinettist Julian Bliss and violinists Alexi Kenney (US) and Marike Kruup (Estonia/UK).
"It’s a great, exciting opportunity. But I love the format of having the emerging artists, the sort of residency programme as well, so it’ll be a real treat to meet those peers as well."
He is looking forward to performing such an eclectic mix of music, from the traditional, 20th and 21st century musicians as well as New Zealand composers.
"It’s really quite a wonderful array of music, certainly something for everyone.
"Whether it’s the beautiful C major arrays of the Schubert quintet, which we all know and love, or it’s the world premieres of local composers. It’s truly quite a daring approach to programming that I think will be wildly successful."
TO SEE
At the World’s Edge Music Festival 2024, Queenstown Lakes, October 5-18. "Sterling Elliott: Dispersion", Oct 5, 4pm and 7pm, Te Atamira, Queenstown; "Fantazi", Oct 6, 2pm and 5pm; Coronation Hall, Bannockburn; "Equinox", Oct 10, 6pm, Cloudy Bay Shed, Cromwell; "Refraction", Oct 11, 7.30pm, Te Atamira, Queenstown; "Aengles", Oct 12 , 4pm and 7pm, Rippon, Wānaka; "Prism", Oct 13, 2pm and 5.30pm, Rippon, Wānaka.
