Cellist Talia Schiff completed her undergraduate studies at Boston University under cellist Leslie Parnas, where she was the recipient of the Edwin E. Stein Award for Excellence in Musical Studies.  As winner of the 1982 Austrian-American Society Mozarteum Scholarship Competition she was awarded a summer of study in Salzburg with legendary cellist Antonio Janigro. She later attended the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, earning her Master’s degree in the studios of concert cellists Stephen Kates and Yehuda Hanani. Ms. Schiff subsequently went on to help found the Castalia String Trio, semifinalists in the 1987 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition.

In 1989 Ms. Schiff continued to pursue her love of chamber music by becoming a founding member of the Tenor Clef Dwellers: a cello quartet. For the next decade, she devoted much of her artistic energy to developing the performance and repertoire of the cello quartet ensemble. In spring of 2001, a collection of music she had transcribed for the Tenor Clef Dwellers’ performances was published by Musicelli Publications.

A former member of the Delaware Symphony, Ms. Schiff is currently the principal cellist of both the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra and the New Jersey Opera Orchestra. She is a member of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and is a substitute cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Philly Pops and the Philadelphia Opera Company orchestra. Her diverse musical activities include performing the solo cello part in the July, 2002 world premier of the Ben Steinberg work “Psalm of Thanksgiving” in Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall.