Cellist and baroque cellist Glenna Curren currently performs and teaches in Rochester, New York. The daughter of a musician, Glenna was steeped in music from the very beginning of her life. She began her formal musical studies with the piano at the age of 4, but fell in love with the cello several years later. Receiving early praise for the emotional depth, control, and fire in her playing, her enthusiasm for performing was cemented at the age of fifteen when she made her first public recital appearance, which would later be broadcast on WXXI; several weeks later she gave her first of several yearly performances on live radio, as a guest on Rochester's Public Radio series Live From Hochstein.
As a baroque cellist and gambist, Glenna has collaborated in performance with some of the early music world's most highly regarded performers, including Paul O'dette and members of Tafelmusik, Apollo's Fire, and the Orchestra of the 18th Century. In 2010 she was a recipient of a grant from Early Music America, subsequently performing with the ensemble Oberlin Baroque at the 2011 Boston Early Music Festival. Sought-after as a continuo player, Glenna performs frequently with some of Rochester's magnificent historical organs, in collaboration with the Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative. She currently performs with the Christ Church Baroque Consort and, as a soprano, with the Christ Church Schola Cantorum.
Glenna has performed across the United States and five European countries as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician. She has performed in notable venues such as Disney Hall in Los Angeles and Bartók Hall in Debrecen, Hungary, and served frequently as an orchestral section leader. As a guest, she has appeared on the Chamber Music Rochester series, Morning Chamber Music series, and Eastman Virtuosi chamber music series, and multiple times as a soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic. Glenna's early exposure to vocal music has fueled her love of opera in particular; she has performed with Rochester's former Mercury Opera Company and in many productions at the Eastman School of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the Oberlin Baroque Institute.
Glenna completed her Master's Degree in 2014 at the Eastman School of Music, under the guidance of renowned pedagogue Alan Harris. She received her Bachelor of Music degree in 2011 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Catharina Meints and Amir Eldan. While at Oberlin, she pursued additional studies in baroque cello and viola da gamba with Professor Meints and Kenneth Slowik, completing a minor in Historical Performance.