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20-year-old American cellist Cicely Parnas is recognized for bringing "velvety sound, articulate passagework and keen imagination" to her performances (The New York Times). As First Prize Winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, she will be presented this season in debuts in New York in the Rhoda Walker Teagle Concert, and in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center. Ms. Parnas will also give recitals at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, the Jewish Community Alliance, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, Vanguard Concerts, and the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, and appears as concerto soloist with the Long Bay Symphony, the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, and the Montreal Chamber Orchestra.

In 2012, Cicely Parnas made her Carnegie Hall concerto debut performing the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto with the New York String Orchestra under the baton of Jaime Laredo. She has performed the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Vermont Symphony under Jaime Laredo and has toured France performing the Saint-Saëns Concerto with L'Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under John Axelrod. Ms. Parnas performed in the 2013 Young Concert Artists Festivals in Tokyo, Japan, and in the cities of Beijing and Wuhan in China.

Winning numerous prizes from the age of thirteen, she won the 2011 Artistic Excellence Award and First Prize in the Cello Concerto Competition at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. She has been heard on NPR's Performance Today Series.

Ms. Parnas frequently performs and records with her sister, violinist Madalyn Parnas, in Duo Parnas which has also performed trios with pianist Peter Serkin. Duo Parnas has performed Saint-Saëns's La Muse et le Poète with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic under Randall Fleisher, the El Paso Symphony Orchestra at the El Paso Pro-Musica Festival under Lawrence Loh, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra under David Alan Miller, with whom they also played Vivaldi's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello. Duo Parnas's album on the Sheffield Lab label is In Real Time, includes 21st century works by Lera Auerbach, William Bolcom, Paul Moravec, and Charles Wuorinen. They recently recorded composer Brian Fennelly's Fantasia Concertante on Albany Records with the Fauxharmonic Orchestra, comprised entirely of digital orchestral instruments. This season, the Duo tours China, and performs at Tannery Pond Concerts and the ShortGrass Music Festival.

Granddaughter of the illustrious cellist, Leslie Parnas, Cicely Parnas started playing the cello at age four and made her concerto debut at eleven with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. She has studied with cellist Peter Wiley, and earned an Artist Diploma from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. She currently attends the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she works with Sharon Robinson. Ms. Parnas performs on a 1712 Giovanni Grancino cello.