Meet the Musicians

Craig Hultgren
Cello

Cellist Craig Hultgren is an activist for new music, the newly creative arts, and the avant-garde. Possessing a broad range of instrumental techniques from traditional to radical, Hultgren presents his own spontaneous, free-style improvisations along with programs of new music throughout the country and abroad. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and European radio. The Birmingham News said of him, "Hultgren...pushes the limits of his instrument brilliantly by using extended techniques in fascinating ways." A recipient of Artist Fellowships in 1992 and 1999 from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, he has been a member since 1993 of Th‡myris, a contemporary chamber music ensemble in Atlanta.

A long-time member of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, he also plays in the newly formed Chagall Trio. Hultgren is featured in three solo CD recordings including most recently the Electro-Acoustic Cello Book on Living Artist Recordings.

More than simply a performer, Hultgren also works on behalf of the arts as an organizer. Currently, he is Vice President of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance. Hultgren has also served as president of the Birmingham Art Association, where he instituted Birmingham Improv, the annual, international festival of improvisation. Nationally, he is a consultant for the Living Music Foundation and on the Steering Committee of the New Directions Cello Association. He is Director of the Birmingham-Southern College New Music Ensemble. He also teaches at Birmingham-Southern College, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Most recently he has been appointed to the Learning Objective, Learning Activity Editorial Board to develop materials for online education.

This last year found him holding the second Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, a competition highlighting the best new compositions for the instrument, and improvising the incidental music for the Birmingham Children's Theatre production of The Miracle Worker.