Strings Magazine writes, "At Merkin Hall (NYC) cellist Eliot Bailen displayed a warm focused tone, concentrated expressiveness and admirable technical command always at the service of the music" (July, '99). Eliot Bailen is principal cello of the New York Chamber Ensemble, New Jersey Festival Orchestra, Orchestra New England, New York Bach Artists, Teatro Grattacielo and the New Choral Society. Founder and Artistic Director of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble whose performances the New York Times has described as the Platonic ideal of a chamber music concert. (July, 2005), Mr. Bailen also performs regularly with the Saratoga Chamber Players, 'Modern Works,' the Cape May Music Festival and the Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival and is founder of the series Chamber Music at Rodeph Sholom in New York. He is assistant-principal cello of the Stamford Symphony and appears frequently with leading New York area orchestras such as the Orchestra of St. Luke's, New York City Opera and Ballet, American Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York. He has recorded for Nonesuch, Koch International, Deutche Grammophon, Delos, New World, Beanstalk, BMG and Flying Dutchman Records and has been heard as solo cello in numerous Broadway shows.
Mr. Bailen received his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) from Yale University and is on the cello and chamber music faculty at Columbia University and Teachers College. Graduating in 1977 with High Honors in Music and French Literature from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Mr. Bailen also holds an M.B.A. in Finance from New York University where he was awarded the coveted Slater Prize for Entrepreneurship. In 2002, he was awarded the Norman Vincent Peale Arts Award for Positive Thinking. Mr. Bailen has also gained national attention as a writer and producer of children's music receiving over twenty-five commissions (including a Yale Alumni grant) for his "Song to Symphony" project, an extended school residency program that presents children's original musicals in an orchestral setting (subject of a NY Times feature article, Sept. 2006). Recently Mr. Bailen premiered his Double Concerto for flute and cello with the Johns Hopkins Orchestra with he and his wife, flutist, Susan Rotholz as soloists. They live in New York City with their twin sons David and Daniel and their daughter Julia.