An Evening with Sahada Buckley and Trace Johnson

From Fairhope, Alabama, Sahada Buckley is a graduate of the University of Georgia with degrees in Music Theory and Violin Performance. She is now earning her Masters degree at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying with David Perry. She is a member of the Marvin Rabin String Quartet. She has attended festivals such as Meadowmount School of Music, Tanglewood BUTI, Montecito Music Festival, and Green Mountain Music Festival.

In 2018, she performed as a soloist with the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra after winning the 2018 UGASO Concerto Competition. In 2019, she through-hiked the Appalachian Trail with a violin on her backpack. Sahada plays with multiple groups exploring the possibilities of experimental improvisation. Two of her albums have been featured on Bandcamp Daily’s ‘Best Experimental Albums’ List. She spends her free time walking her dog, painting and attending concerts.

Cellist Trace Johnson is a musician from Madison, Wisconsin. Trace has appeared as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral musician in a wide variety of ensembles and settings around the world. Equally at home teaching in the studio or performing on stage, Trace is a devoted and thoughtful communicator who enjoys a varied career as a cellist, teacher, and musician.

Trace holds section cello positions at the Sarasota Orchestra in Sarasota, Florida and the Southwest Florida Symphony in Fort Myers, Florida; in Florida, he has performed with Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble, Sarasota Opera, Miami City Ballet, Palm Beach Symphony, Palm Beach Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Atlantic Classical Orchestra, Boca Symphonia, Orlando Philharmonic, Kravis Pops Orchestra, Symphony of the Americas, Miami Symphony, Orchestra Miami, South Florida Symphony, and the New World Symphony. Trace has also performed with the Fresno Philharmonic in Fresno, California, the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Wisconsin, and in the Film-Score Orchestra in Nanjing, China. Trace has performed in chamber recitals with faculty from SUNY Purchase University, University of Toronto, Florida Atlantic University, Lynn Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida International University, Shenandoah University, and Queens College in New York City. In November 2021, Trace successfully auditioned onto the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra substitute list and began working with the ensemble in December 2021.

In addition to his performance work, Trace has also worked as a composer, arranger, and recording artist. In 2016, Trace recorded the tutti and solo cello parts for the Barrage8 2015-16 Tour Release; in 2017, Trace co-wrote music that appeared in the Wisconsin indie short film, Christmas Trees. Christmas Trees, shot and directed by videographer Jack Whaley, debuted at the Wisconsin Film Festival at Sundance Theatres in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2020, Trace composed and recorded original music for the Wisconsin short film, One Foot In, and a virtual-reading release of New York-based author Mark Belaire’s newest publication, Stonehaven. During the pandemic, Trace produced recordings for Master Chorale of South Florida in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Sarasota Orchestra in Sarasota, Florida, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and the Madison New Music Festival in Madison, Wisconsin. In November 2020, Trace recorded solo cello work, All the Pretty Little Horses, by Wisconsin-based composer Laura Schwendinger at Oktaven Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey; the unaccompanied cello work will be included on an Albany Records release in the near future. Recently, Trace produced recordings from two contemporary solo recitals recorded live at the Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) in Madison, WI in early August 2021. At the ALL recitals, Trace performed works by Osvaldo Golijov, Steven Stucky, J.S. Bach, Laura Elise Schwendinger, and a premiere from New York-based composer, Jesse Limbacher entitled, 'Trace for ‘Cello Solo’.

Trace has received numerous fellowship scholarships to pursue music; he has been a fellow at the Atlantic Music Festival in Watertown, Maine, Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, a nationally acclaimed chamber music festival, in Madison, Wisconsin. During summer studies, Trace has collaborated with composers George Tsontakis, Donald Crockett, Ken Ueno, and Sol-bong Kim and shared the stage with eminent artists Midori, Anne Akiko-Myers, Stefan Jackiw, Awadagin Pratt, William Wolfram, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenburg. At Lynn Conservatory, Trace performed the Brahms Double Concerto with the Lynn Philharmonia after winning the annual concerto competition, won first prize in the Lyric Chamber Society of New York's Chamber Competition, and won first prize at the John Oliveira String Competition.

Trace received his Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2012 and his Master’s of Music from Lynn Conservatory in December 2016; his principal instructors have been David Cole, Dr. Melissa Kraut, Joseph Johnson, and Dr. Tanya Carey. Trace is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music as a Collins Fellow studying with cellist and Feldenkreis practitioner, Uri Vardi.

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