Cellist Lydia Rhea and Pianist Amber Scherer perform works by Claude Debussy, Andrea Casarrubios, Philip Lasser and Johannes Brahms, live from the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, Chicago.
Cellist Lydia Rhea has traveled across the world sharing the power of storytelling through music. A firm believer in increasing accessibility to concert halls and diversifying the classical canon, her work has taken her from Carnegie Hall to Cuba in performing and teaching capacities.
In 2023 & 2025, Lydia was a member of the quartet-in-residence at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. She previously attended the Sitka International Cello Seminar studying with concert cellist Zuill Bailey. Other festival experiences include the Festival des écoles d’art américaines, Moritzburg Festival and Academy, Yellow Barn Young Artist Program, Meadowmount School of Music, and Heifetz International Music Institute.
Amber Scherer is a pianist and educator based in NYC. Her work focuses on broadening accessibility to the arts and performing underrepresented voices in classical music.
In 2024, Scherer collaborated on the Webby-nominated Claiming Your Space, Juilliard’s celebration of Black musicians throughout history. She more recently performed in Juilliard’s Pride Songbook and Eros & Co. Eros featured Scherer and four singers at Merkin Hall as Caramoor Fellows, as part of the New York Festival of Song.
Scherer returned to Merkin Hall for Juilliard’s Vocal Arts Honors Recital with soprano Kerrigan Bigelow. Amber and Kerrigan have performed together extensively, as New Music Fellows at Songfest and Fellowship winners with the Federation of Art Song. Next season, they will perform recitals through City Lyric Opera, featuring a commissioned song cycle by composer Justine Chen.
