William Cernota, M.S.

About

William Cernota, violoncello, has been a member of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra since 1982.  From 1982 to 1996 he was a substitute cellist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Since 1994 he has served on the Lyric Opera Orchestra Members Committee, including 21 years as Chair.  While a student of Chicago Symphony Principal Cellist Frank Miller, he was Principal Cellist of the Chicago Civic Orchestra.  During this period William performed as soloist in Don Quixote and Schelomo with the Chicago Civic Orchestra.  His other teachers include Gordon Luetke, Alois Trnka, Raya Garbousova, Karl Fruh, and Daniel Morganstern.  He has also held principal cello positions with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Concertante di Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater, and Peninsula Music Festival.  In 2012 he was appointed Principal Cellist in the Southern Illinois Music Festival.  He has performed annual recitals since 2011 on live, globally streamed broadcasts from WFMT with pianist Eric Weimer.  He was a soloist on two European tours of the Chicago Chamber Orchestra.  William is currently on the adjunct music faculties of Loyola University Chicago and Southern Illinois University Carbondale School of Music and has served in similar positions at DePaul, Roosevelt, and Northwestern Universities.  Following graduation in Ideas & Methods and Biology from the University of Chicago he served for three years in the Peace Corps, Sierra Leone as a biology teacher and band director.  With special interests in new as well as old music, he appears regularly in contemporary music concerts and has also performed on baroque cello with several period instrument groups.  He performed Lutoslawski’s works for solo cello at Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center in Chicago with the composer in attendance.  In 2019 he received the Alumni Award from the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra.  With pianist Joy Doran, he issued a CD: On or About December, 1910.  He is a founding member and General Director of Chicago Camerata and the Overtones Ensemble formerly in Residence at Loyola University Museum of Art.  He also works as a research scientist at Fermalogic, Incorporated and completed the Masters in Engineering Degree from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace…Music is a moral law.  It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything.  It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, true, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless, dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.” -Plato

Degrees

M.S., University of Illinois at Chicago

B.A., University of Chicago