"A bond of humanity through music" ● The Boston Musical Intelligencer
"The emotional heart of the show remained Casarrubios' four-movement concerto" ● Of Note
"A stirring creation" ● The Strad
"I was seduced by Casarrubios' compositions" ● Crescendo Magazine
Photo by Titilayo Ayangade
Biography
Praised by The New York Times for performances that "traversed the palette of emotions" with "gorgeous tone and an edge-of-seat intensity," GRAMMY® nominated Spanish-American composer and cellist Andrea Casarrubios has been commissioned by world-class orchestras and ensembles, and has appeared as a featured soloist throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The title work from her album SEVEN was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
Casarrubios' compositions have been programmed by organizations including Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic, and have been broadcast on NPR as well as national radio stations in Argentina, Brazil, France, Sweden, Australia, and Spain. Recent works include Afilador, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Herencia for String Orchestra, a "stirring creation" (The Strad) and “a bond of humanity through music” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). Herencia was premiered at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium in 2023, and featured on Sphinx Virtuosi’s 2025 album American Mirrors, released on Deutsche Grammophon.
Her acclaimed piece SEVEN "an intense and elegiac tribute to the essential workers during the pandemic" (The New York Times) received its Carnegie Hall premiere in 2021 and has been performed in more than 36 countries since. SEVEN was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award following its release on the 2024 album of the same name, which featured Casarrubios as cellist and composer in seven of her most recent works including collaborations with Manhattan Chamber Players and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. First Prize winner of numerous international competitions and awards, Casarrubios has appeared multiple times at Carnegie Hall, Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts, and the Ravinia and Verbier Festivals.
As a guest soloist, engagements include the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s world premiere of Casarrubios’ large-scale concerto for cello and orchestra, MIRAGE, led by conductor Christopher James Lees, as well as concerts at the Brussels Cello Festival, Festival Internacional de Violoncello León in Mexico, and the George Enescu Festival in Romania. Other recent appearances include performances of Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata arranged for cello and orchestra by Casarrubios herself. She is the Composer in Residence at La Rioja Festival 2026, and during the summer season Casarrubios will premiere her own Double Concerto for cello, percussion, and orchestra in New York.
Casarrubios has taught masterclasses in Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Spain, China, as well as at numerous festivals and institutions in the United States, including The Juilliard School, University of Colorado Boulder, University of North Carolina, Missouri State University and City University of New York. Her cello teachers have included Maria de Macedo, Lluis Claret, Amit Peled, Marcy Rosen, and Ralph Kirshbaum. She is an alumna of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and as part of her Doctoral degree in New York, Casarrubios also studied composition with John Corigliano.
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"Herencia is an inspired work... a bond of humanity through music" ● The Boston Musical Intelligencer
"There is always a deeply earnest quality in Andrea’s music, a sense of human truth" ● Stephanie Ann Boyd, I care if you listen "SEVEN is a work of profound beauty and intensity, offering both reflection and solace, much like an open window..." ● Pedro Téllez, Revista Melómano "I was seduced by Casarrubios' compositions during the Brussels Cello Festival... Speechless stirs with a heartbreaking emotional tension." ● Bernard Vincken, Crescendo Magazine “SEVEN is a hauntingly beautiful tribute… a work that will grip your heart and punch you in the stomach in the most cathartic, and absolutely necessary way” ● Crystal Bick, This Time Tomorrow |
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"Gorgeously lyrical" ● Gramophone Review
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"Superhumans come in all forms. In this case, they have come in the form of Andrea Casarrubios, Shostakovich and Van Gogh" ● ABC Classic
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