Samuel Sykes, twenty-two, is currently a graduate student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He began studying the cello at age three with Karen Geyer at the Northeast Iowa School of Music and made his concerto debut at age twelve. He then continued his studies with Kevin Price Brenner and Peter Thomas, and attended the Interlochen Arts Academy from 2017-2019. In May 2017 he was the recipient of the Interlochen Arts Academy’s Fine Arts Award for Cello Performance. Samuel has also attended the Meadowmount School of Music, the Sitka International Cello Seminar, the AIMS Festival Orchestra, and was a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2023. 

Samuel has participated in masterclasses with the Juilliard String Quartet, Calidore String Quartet, and the Cavani Quartet and was a member of the Advanced Piano Trio Program at CIM where he has performed in seminars for Jaime Laredo, Daniel Shapiro, Jessica Lee, and other esteemed musicians. Some of his leading mentors include Hans Jørgen Jensen, Sharon Robinson, and Zuill Bailey. Additionally, he was a National YoungArts Winner in 2019 for Classical Music and performed at the winner’s concert in New York City. He placed first in the 2021 Tennessee (TCW) Cello Competition and second in the 2021 Schubert Club Scholarship Competition. In 2022, Samuel won a section position with the Canton Symphony Orchestra which he actively performs in. Additionally, Samuel was a prize winner in the inaugural Hill Concerto Competition and performed Dvorak Concerto with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in New York. Samuel previously studied with Dr. Melissa Kraut at the Cleveland Institute of Music for his undergraduate degree and is currently studying with Brinton Smith at Rice University. His cello is generously on loan from the Maestro Foundation.

He is also very passionate about arranging cello ensemble music. His arrangement of Poulenc’s Les Chemins de l’amour for cello quintet premiered in concert in Graz, Austria along with his arrangements of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C major for cello trio and Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor for cello sextet. Additionally, he recently wrote and performed his cello quartet arrangement of West Side Story, Piazzolla's Winter in Buenos Aires, Bach’s Chaconne in D minor for cello duet, and Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 on concert programs in Ohio. His original composition Variations on a Prokofiev Theme was premiered last April.