Cellist David Heiss is a former member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and is principal cellist of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Featured as a concerto soloist and recitalist in a wide range of repertoire, he will present a John Betts cello, dated 1789. He is joined by pianist Warren Jones, a former faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, Rutgers University, and the Music Academy of the West, who has served as Principal Pianist for the exciting California chamber music group Camerata Pacifica.
This program is made possible, in part, with generous support from the Law Office of Stephen Holden, Esq. White Plains.
As a former member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, David Heiss performed with the company for nearly forty years, and acted as cello continuo soloist in the entire canon of Mozart and Handel operas. In recent seasons he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the same capacity for their performances of Le nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, both conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Mr. Heiss is principal cellist of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, and has been featured as concerto soloist and and recitalist in a wide range of repertory, including the American premieres of concertos by Irving Robbin and Theodore Antoniou (at the Tanglewood Festival) and the world premiere of the Robert Manno Cello Sonata, which was dedicated to him. He is a founding member of the OMNI Piano Quartet, and is a frequent guest artist and teacher at conservatories and music festivals.
Mr. Heiss was involved in the conception and development of the Broadway production of The Elephant Man as composer and arranger of incidental music for the Tony Award winning play, and performed on Broadway and throughout the United States as the on-stage cellist in the drama. His television credits include The Today Show and Late Night with David Letterman, and his career has been profiled twice (2010 and 2013) on Expressions, a series produced by the PBS station in his hometown of Binghamton, NY. He has also been featured several times on American Public Radio's series Performance Today. Mr. Heiss studied with famed cellist Leonard Rose at The Juilliard School. He plays a John Betts cello, dated 1789.
Warren Jones—pianist, master teacher, chamber musician, conductor, and vocal coach— was born in Washington, DC and grew up in North Carolina. A resident of New York City, Mr. Jones is a former member of the Collaborative Piano Faculty at the Manhattan School of Music. He has served as Artist-in-Residence in Music at the Mason Gross School of Music at Rutgers University, and Artist-in-Residence in Opera at New England Conservatory and at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. For many years he was the head of the Vocal Piano program during summers at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA.
His credentials as a musical jurist are impeccable: he was on the jury of the First China International Piano Competition in Beijing in 2019 as well as the Montreal International Vocal Competition in 2018, and has served on the juries of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Naumberg Awards, and the Metropolitan Opera Auditions.
Having enjoyed a long performing career, he occupied the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Chair in Principal Piano at Camerata Pacifica, and has been recital partner for Stephanie Blythe, Anthony Dean Griffey, Eric Owens, Andrew Garland, Kathleen Battle, Sidney Outlaw, Samuel Ramey, Dame Kiri TeKanawa, Christine Brewer, Barbara Bonney, James Morris, Martti Talvela, Thomas Hampson, Marilyn Horne, Carol Vaness, Richard O’Neill, and Lynn Harrell. Mr. Jones has toured with both the Juilliard Quartet and the Borromeo Quartet and has performed several times with members of the Takacs Quartet in varied repertory.
Mr. Jones has been invited three times to the White House in Washington to perform at state dinners, and he has been a guest at the United States Supreme Court for their annual musicales on three occasions.
As a conductor, Mr. Jones has led opera performances of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Mascagni, Bernstein, and Menotti, as well as the 2014 world premiere at Houston Grand Opera of Iain Bell’s setting of A Christmas Carol, starring Jay Hunter Morris and directed by Simon Cowell.
His discography includes 32 recordings on every major label, featuring diverse content, styles, and periods. Most recently his newly-released recording with Sidney Outlaw, “Lament”, is garnering critical acclaim and reflects their ongoing interest in Black American music and poetry.
In his spare time, Mr. Jones enjoys cooking, history, politics, exercise, and music.