About

     Currently based in Dallas-Fort Worth, cellist Bree Ahern is a versatile performing artist committed to building community through performing, teaching, and collaborating across art forms. A passionate solo and chamber musician, she has dedicated herself to presenting innovative programs to diverse audiences and using music to serve and enrich her community.   

     Bree is a core member of Kinetic, a Houston-based conductorless ensemble of sixteen musicians committed to amplifying diverse, underrepresented, and newly composed classical music through intensely collaborative chamber music and orchestral settings. Dubbed Houston’s “Indie, Conductorless Orchestra” and the “Best Chamber Orchestra of 2023” (Houston Public Media; Houston Press), the ensemble has premiered over twenty new works by emerging and established living composers and has gained increasing national recognition as an innovative and dynamic force in Houston’s music scene, with its 2023 debut album reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts. Artist-led and artist-curated, Bree has curated interdisciplinary chamber music performances for the ensemble that synthesize visual art, spoken word, and contemporary dance in venues such as Archway Gallery, Discovery Green, and Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.

	Solo and chamber music is central to Bree’s career and spans the expanse of standard to contemporary repertoire. She has premiered dozens of solo, chamber, and orchestral works and believes performing newly composed works is a vital and enriching role as an artist. She is committed to introducing new works by engaging with audiences on a personal level, collaborating with and commissioning living composers, performing in unconventional venues, and curating programs that seamlessly pair old and new works alike. She appears consistently with DFW and Houston-based chamber ensembles, including Opus Nova Music, Spectrum Chamber Music Society, Mount Vernon Music, Loop38, Musiqa, Aperio: Music of the Americas, and Hoppa Project. She is particularly passionate about collaborating across art forms to bridge new connections in interdisciplinary projects. To date, she has collaborated with neuroscientists at University of Houston, dancers at Noble Motion Dance, Bowen McCauley Dance Company, Avant Chamber Ballet, and Houston Contemporary Dance, folk musicians at the Asia Society of Texas, and visual artists at Archway Gallery, among others. Outside of her work in Texas, she has appeared with various festivals, including the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, the Louis Moreau Institute for Contemporary Music, the Rossini Club in Nantucket, MA (featured on New Music USA), Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Hot Springs Music Festival, and Round Top Music Festival (featured on WQXR).

         Bree’s commitment to performing contemporary music extends to her passion for accessibility and community engagement, with the belief that building relationships through music creates opportunities for impactful social change. From 2019-2022 she served as a Young Artist with Da Camera of Houston, a fellowship program that uses diverse programming to enrich the lives of underserved communities in Houston, TX. As a Young Artist, she presented arts-integrated lessons for elementary students in Title I schools that emphasized skills such as critical thinking, emotional regulation, teamwork, and self-expression. To date, she has led over 100 interactive performances for audiences in elementary schools, LGBTQ homeless youth at Montrose Grace Center, incarcerated youth at Harris County’s Juvenile Detention Center, and residents at Texas Health Southwest, Texas Children’s Hospital, MD Anderson, and Houston Methodist Hospital. During her tenure as a core player with Monarch Chamber Players, she performed chamber concerts extensively throughout Houston in venues such as public parks, school auditoriums, libraries, front porches, and more, bringing classical music out of the concert hall and directly into community settings. In Fort Worth, she appears with the Symphonic Southwest Series in collaboration with Music Meets Medicine and presents Candlelight Concerts at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, helping introduce classical and popular music to new concert-goers in an accessible, down to earth fashion. 

          A dedicated pedagogue, Bree has served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Cello at Oklahoma State University and on faculty at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, TX. She has given solo and chamber music masterclasses at University of Texas-Arlington, Sam Houston State University, Oklahoma State University, and the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, in addition to extensive clinic experience in Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, Klein ISD, Houston ISD, Kinder HSPVA, and Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, to name a few. She has coached chamber music for AFA’s Chamber Music Academy & Summer Festival and Opus 1 Chamber Music School in Houston, TX, and previously served as the Faculty Chair and Chamber Music Coordinator for Fort Worth Youth Orchestras’ Chamber Music Program. From 2017-2019 she was a Brown Foundation Teaching Fellow for the Young Children’s Division in the Shepherd School of Music’s Michael P. Hammond Preparatory Program, where she taught group classes based on Dalcroze eurhythmics and developed educational programming for elementary school audiences. Bree is Suzuki-Certified in Books 1-8 and completed her training under renowned pedagogue Tanya Carey, who has also served as an influential mentor. Her precollege students have experienced success at the local, regional, and national level, earning entry to opportunities such as NYO, NYO2, TMEA All-State Orchestras, Houston Youth Symphony, Fort Worth Youth Orchestras, Meadowmount School of Music, Stringwood Music Camp, and more.

         Bree is a graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she studied with Norman Fischer on full scholarship as a Brown Foundation Teaching Fellow. Previously, she studied with Meredith Blecha-Wells at Oklahoma State University, where she graduated summa cum laude on a full scholarship. When not practicing, performing, or teaching, Bree loves to practice ashtanga yoga, paint, explore the craft coffee scene in Dallas-Fort Worth, and spend time with her two orange cats.

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