Matthew Christakos
associate principal cello
Matthew Christakos joined the New York Philharmonic as Associate Principal Cello in January 2024. Originally from Toronto, he graduated from the Curtis Institute of Muisc, where he studied with Peter Wiley, Carter Brey and Gary Hoffman, and has served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Christakos’s recent honors include the 2019 Canada Council for the Arts’s Michael Measures Prize, second prize in the Canadian Music Competition’s 2019 Stepping Stone, and first prize in the 2017 Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival President’s Trophy Competition. CBC Music included him in its 2019 edition of 30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30.
Before attending Curtis, Christakos studied in Toronto at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, where he won the concerto competition and performed as soloist with the Academy Chamber Orchestra. In 2019 he toured Canada and Spain as a featured soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He is an alumnus of the Morningside Music Bridge program. He previously studied with David Hetherington and Hans Jørgen Jensen. He began cello at age four.
