Emmy winning cellist and Broadway veteran, Barbara Hedlund is fortunate to enjoy a rich, varied and long musical career as soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, recording artist, recitalist, university professor, music librarian, editor, publisher, fine arts administrator, and music producer. She is listed in Who's Who in American Women, Who's Who in the Midwest, Who's Who in American Universities, Who's Who in America, and the International Who's Who in Music and Musicians Directory.
She performed with the NY Philharmonic, for sixteen Broadway shows, as Principal Cellist of the New Jersey Symphony, Westfield Symphony and Quartet, and Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Westbury Music Fair, as Principal Cellist and Chamber Music Coordinator for the Klassiches Musik Festival in Vienna and Eisenstadt, Austria for five seasons, and toured throughout America and in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, South Africa, Canada, and Antigua.
Ballet Companies: She performed as Principal Cello with touring Ballet Companies - Moiseyev, Martha Graham, Milwaukee, Chicago, London Ballet, Cirque Elois de Montreal, New Jersey Ballet, & for several years as solo cellist with Senta Driver’s Dance Company “Harry” in NY City.
Opera Companies: A passionate supporter of opera and opera singers, she performed as Principal Cellist with the Lake George Opera, Friends of French Opera (Carnegie Hall), Philadelphia Grand Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera Tour, Opera Illinois, Illinois Opera Theater, Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Sugar Creek Symphony & Song Festival, and as section cellist with Teatro Gratacielo at Lincoln Center.
Film credits include: Associate Producer, Musical Supervisor, and on-camera cellist for the 2003 WILL-TV Emmy Winning Performance Documentary The Song and The Slogan, (featuring five time Grammy winner/late Metropolitan Opera Tenor Jerry Hadley and actor David Hartman), as Associate Producer for the WILL-TV 2004 Documentary The Music of World War II, in 2007 as music consultant for Ten Sisters, sound tracks for the Paramount Studios film Star Trek IV, New York Public Television specials with Mercer Ellington, Carly Simon, Sarah Vaughan, & actor Robert Alda, A & E Television's Live by Request with Johnny Mathis, a PBS Documentary with Flash Cadillac, and producer/ cellist for the 2007 Roger Ebert Forgotten Film Festival live performance of Joseph Turrin’s sound track to Ms. Sadie Thompson with the Champaign Urbana Symphony.
Recorded works include: albums for RCA, Sony EMI Limited, Sesame Street, Book of the Month Club, Arabesque Records, Sculpture Scope Videos, Amasong, Reign Records, and Ocean’s Edge Music.
Tours: She toured in America, South Africa, and Antigua with Shirley Bassey, Michael Crawford, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Weber, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Spinners.
Popular artists for whom she has performed in concert with include: Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Anne Murray, Ben Vereen, Cleo Lane, Charles Aznavour, Frankie Valli, Rodney Dangerfield, Michel Le Grand, George Shearing, Barbara Cooke, Marian Mc Partland, the Moody Blues, and Flash Cadillac.
Teaching credits: Illinois Wesleyan, Wilkes Universities, the Conservatory of Central Illinois, and as visiting professor at the University of Illinois, Illinois State University, Parkland College, Unit 4 & District 116 schools. She currently teaches at Cellobration Studios and for the Illinois Council of Orchestras Strings @ Allerton Symposium.
Awards: Her 2003 WILL-FM radio appearance won a shared Crystal Award of Excellence from the International Communicator Awards Committee; an Emmy for
Best Music and four nominations for the 2003 WILL -TV Performance Documentary The Song and The Slogan; 2005 finalist for the Lifetime Achievement Ace Award for the inaugural 40 North ACE Award celebrating the accumulated successes of an individual for continued, outstanding support of the arts and for extraordinary contributions to the cultural life of Champaign County; named “Cellist of the Week” by the Web Site Cello Heaven; an Illinois Council of Orchestras award for Chamber Ensemble of the Year as BACH founder/administrator; the Illinois Governor's Arts Award nominee as Individual Artist & for Special Recognition;special recognition from the Chicago NW Symphony for establishing a Young Artist scholarship; and a mayoral appointment to the Urbana Public Arts Task Force Committee in 2007. To encourage and support young talent, she sponsors the Arcadia Chamber Players Student Chamber Music Competition and the NW Symphony Paul Vermel Young Artist Competition.
Central Illinois Musical Affiliations: She served as Principal Cello of the Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestra (8 yrs), Principal Cello (and Personnel Manager) for the Opera Illinois Orchestra with Maestra Fiora Contino (18yrs), and co Principal for the Sinfonia Da Camera (3 yrs).
Current Musical Affiliations: Mrs. Hedlund currently performs as Principal Cellist for the Champaign Urbana Symphony, Danville Symphony, Prairie Ensemble, The Sugar Creek Symphony and Song Festival, Heartland Festival Orchestra, in weekly appearances with 1st Choice Music Services, as performer for The Mills Breast Cancer Institute Music Series, and as an extra for the Peoria Symphony.
Recent solo appearances with orchestra include: A recording for Ocean's Edge Music and CD release concert for an audience of 3000 at the Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale, FL; in Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertnate with the Prairie Ensemble; soloist in Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote and Latin Cello Concert with the Danville Symphony; and soloist for the Champaign Urbana Symphony Family concert at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts;
Recent recitals and chamber music concerts include: with the Sutton Ensemble (NJ), The Tarble Arts Center, WILL-FM's Second Sunday Broadcast Recital Series, the Sugar Creek Symphony & Song Festival, the Springer Cultural Center, Urbana Free Library Prairie Breezes Series, Summer Nights at Grace Series, Coordinates The Mills Breast Cancer Institute Music Series, and with the Arcadia Chamber Players.
As Music Administrator: She is the Director of 1st Choice Music Services, Cellobration Publications and The Virtuoso Obbligato Aria Collection, Personnel Manager of The Prairie Ensemble, & Heartland Festival Orchestra, Coordinates The Mills Breast Cancer Institute Music Series, librarian for The Sugar Creek Symphony and Song Festival, served on the board of the Champaign Urbana Symphony for 9 years, Urbana Public Arts Advisory Task Force(2007), Urbana Public Arts Commission (2008 -), and continues as personnel consultant to regional orchestras.
She was a founder/performer/personnel advisor for Central Illinois musical ensembles including: BACH - Baroque Artists of Champaign - Urbana, the WILL-FM Radio Second Sunday Concert Series, String Society Artists, the Illinois Wesleyan Camerata String Orchestra, IWU Classics & Cabaret Cello Ensemble, Sinfonia Da Camera, Illinois Chamber Orchestra, Prairie Ensemble, Wesley Foundation Summer Concert Series, the Summer Nights at Grace Series, & Heartland Festival Orchestra.
Music Librarian: She served as Music Librarian for the NJ Symphony, Lake George Opera, Klassiches Musik Festival, CU Symphony, Opera Illinois, Baroque Artists, and currently for the Sugar Creek Symphony and Song Festival, in addition to assisting library staff of the Champaign Urbana, Danville Symphonies, Prairie Ensemble, & Heartland Festival Orchestra.
Educational Training: Barbara Hedlund studied at Rollins College, Florida State University, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Philadelphia Musical Academy, plus pursued post graduate studies in German and Library Science at the University of Illinois. She trained in the finest orchestral traditions with Principal and Associate Principal Cellists of the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and London Symphony (Samuel Mayes and Nathan Stutch, plus coachings with Nelson Cooke, Douglas Cummings, and Laszlo Varga). Chamber music coaches included Henryk Szering, Richard Burgin, Karen Tuttle, Szymon Goldberg, Joseph Silverstein, Leonid Hambro, Jani Szanto, Charles Wendt, the Stradivarius String Quartet; and as a master class performer for Gregor Piatigorsky, Theo Salzman, and Samuel Mayes.
Married in 1974 to noted Swedish - American Bass-baritone Ronald Hedlund, their son Alexander is a 2006 Master’s graduate from the UI School of Journalism, and 2008 graduate of the UCLA TV & Film Producer’s Program, presently assistant to the President of Production at Warner Brothers Studios in Hollywood. Her step son, aeronautical engineer Dr. Eric Hedlund, is the Chief of Testing and Evaluation for the US Naval Ballistic Missile Defense program.
