Luis Parra
Venezuelan cellist Luis Parra was appointed Cello Section of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in the spring 2024. Parra is an emerging artist in chamber music, orchestra and solo performance, whose musical journey initiated in the Venezuelan world-renowned music program “El Sistema”, He has collaborated with prestigious artists and orchestras in Venezuela, the United States and abroad.
As an orchestra musician and soloist, Parra served as Principal Cellist of the Yaracuy Symphony Orchestra, having the opportunity to tour Colombia in 2012, visiting 7 cities of Venezuela’s neighboring country. Parra has also collaborated with the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra and the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela. Parra also served as Acting Principal Cellist of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina in their 2021/22 season, Guest Principal for the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra in 2023 and Acting Section Cello for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2023. Parra made his solo debut with the Yaracuy Symphony Orchestra in 2014, and his international debut with the Beirut Philharmonic in Lebanon in 2015.
As an accomplished chamber musician, Parra has collaborated with renowned string quartets and chamber musicians such as the Kronos Quartet, the Cavani String Quartet, Lawrence Dutton from the Emerson String Quartet, Ed Gazouleas, Ayane Kozasa, among others. Parra has also participated in many festivals worldwide, including the Nuevo Mundo Festival and Academy in Aruba; the Yawmiyat Festival in Ghalboun, Lebanon; in the USA: Center Stage Strings; the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and most recently the Artosphere Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center in the summers of 2022 and 2023.
In 2017, Parra moved to the United States to study at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University with cellists and pedagogues Richard Aaron, Julie Albers, and Leo Singer, completing his Bachelor’s in Music in 2021. In 2023, Luis Parra completed his Master’s in Music being a student of Alan Rafferty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music performance, serving as a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/CCM Diversity Fellow. Luis Parra performs on a “Neuner & Hornsteiner” cello, generously loaned by the Carlsen Cello Foundation from Seattle, WA.