Cleveland-based cellist Robert Nicholson holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music, teaches privately and as a coach for various school programs, is a member of the Erie Philharmonic and Ohio Valley Symphony, and is in frequent demand by orchestras across the region; but as a performer, he sees himself mostly as a chamber musician.

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Robert is a member of guitar-violin-cello trio Time Canvas (timecanvasensemble.org), which specializes in early music, new music, and improvisation, and lives and performs in the Cleveland area and beyond.

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Other current and past projects include concerts (and many premieres) with new music ensemble FiveOne Experimental Orchestra (fiveonemusic.org); classical piano trio Brahms’s Ghost, which had its inaugural performances this March in Cleveland and Detroit; concerts and lecture recitals with the Mauthe String Quartet, formed with the central purpose of engaging and enriching unreached areas of the Cleveland community; and festival and recital appearances with the Halo Ensemble and the Langlois String Quartet in Austria, Hungary, England, Finland, and Thailand.

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When not playing chamber music, Robert is often thinking about how chamber music can benefit society – how the skills of collaboration, flexibility, imagination, and innovation, so necessary to personal and professional success for any walk of life, are richly and uniquely honed and displayed in this most cooperative of art forms.