An advocate for great music from all eras, Mr. Baldwin is one of the only performers of several little known and new concerti for cello, including recently those by Sollima, Wagenseil, Jacob T.V., Behzad Ranjbaran, and Alan Shulman. His recording of music for cello by Alan Shulman, released by Albany records, enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. He has also recorded for the Naxos, Zyode, and Innova labels.

Wesley was the founder of the Plymouth String Quartet, with whom he was a top prize-winner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. He was also cellist of the James Piano Quartet, with residencies at both Sweet Briar College and the Wintergreen Festival. More recently he has been a member of the Edison Piano Trio. Solo and chamber music performing honors Baldwin has received include the Homer Ulrich Award and the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Performing Artist Fellowship, as well as recognition at the Prix Mercure, The Doug Davis Music Performance Awards, and the Paolo Borciani Quartet Competition.

As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world’s great conductors and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, France, Monaco, and Brazil. His orchestral colleagues there selected him as the recipient of the New World Symphony’s Community Board Award for artistic integrity and leadership. For 15 years Wesley served on New World Symphony regional audition committee panels throughout the U.S.

Dr. Baldwin has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Hot Springs, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Sub-tropics Music Festivals, and internationally in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. In 2017 and again in 2018 he had extended tours performing and teaching in China. In January of 2020 Wesley performed in a series of chamber concerts with the Ensemble D’Amici in South Korea.

In the summers Wesley performs and teaches at the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, the ARIA International Academy, and the Ursus String Camp. For two decades he served as principal cellist of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. 

Dr. Baldwin serves as Professor of Cello at the Natalie L Haslam College of Music at the University of Tennessee, where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise. Wesley previously taught at the University of Maryland and at Florida International University. His former students play and teach throughout the United States and Malaysia, and have gone on to study at Juilliard, the University of Michigan, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, among others.

Dr. Baldwin’s commitment to string education is significant. He founded and directs the Tennessee Cello Workshop, an annual three-day gathering of more than 150 cellists of all ages from throughout the United States held each February. After serving as conductor of the Knoxville Youth Chamber Orchestra for 15 years, he now serves as Director of the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Association Chamber Music program. In Knoxville he also serves as Co Director of the Knoxville Suzuki Academy.

 In recent years Dr. Baldwin has worked with several of his string colleagues at the University of Tennessee to create the Mosaic Music Anthologies, collections of solo and ensemble volumes of music for young string players made up of compositions by Black and Latino composers from all time periods. This project was supported by grants from both the Sphinx Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. The first volumes are now available. Wesley lives in Knoxville with his wife, Soprano and Director Melisa Barrick Baldwin. They have four wonderful children.

www.wesleybaldwincello.com