Belinda Viesca

Cello

Belinda Viesca was born in 1976 in Mexico City and began her early music studies at the National School of Music in Mexico City. From 1990 to 1991 she studied cello at the Maastricht Conservatory in the Netherlands with Frans Van Der Grinten and after returning to Mexico City, she continued her studies at the National School of Music and at the Ollin Yolliztli Music School. 
To further her studies, she moved to the United States of America. First, she studied with Dennis Parker at Louisiana State University. Then, she moved to Texas to study with Laszlo Varga at the University of Houston where she achieved her Bachelor’s degree with Cum Laude Honours. After, she studied for a year with Rhonda Rider at the Boston Conservatory of Music. She completed her Master´s Degree with Jesus Castro-Balbi at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, graduating in 2007 with Magna Cum Laude Honours and some awards, among them the Phi Kappa Lambda Award. In the fall of 2008, she was “Artist in Residence” at the Banff Center for the Arts in Banff, Canada and subsequently, completed her cello studies with Andres Diaz and Chris Atkins at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. 

She has also done additional cello studies and chamber music studies with great professors such as: Rudolf Leopold, Aldo Parisot, Phillipe Muller, Richard Aaron, Stefan Popov, Owen Carman, Hans Jorgen Jensen, Anthony Arnone, Norman Fischer, Bayla Keyes, Judith Gordon, Max Levinson, Alfred Mouledous, Judith Eissenberg, Janice Weber, Jayn Rosenfeld, Henk Guittart, Richard Markson, the Audubon String Quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Shanghai String Quartet and the St. Petersburg String Quartet among many others. 
Belinda Viesca is a very experienced orchestra musician. From early on during her studies, she has won several orchestra jobs; her first was with the Carlos Chávez Symphony Orchestra in Mexico City. During her studies and subsequently, she worked mostly as principal and co-principal cellist with: the MIT Chamber Orchestra in Boston, several symphonic orchestras in various Texas cities (San Angelo, Irving, Plano, Fort Collins, Marshall, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Opera in Fort Worth, the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Pops Orchestra and others) and as a member of several other symphony orchestras in the US, such as South Arkansas , Shreveport Opera and Shreveport Symphony. 
She is also a very experienced chamber musician. She has performed in various chamber music groups, touring orchestras and festivals, among others toured China with the Mantovani Orchestra, performed in Italy at the CCM Music Festival in Spoleto, the chamber music festival in Orvieto and the Opera Festival in Rome. She also toured the US with Cirque Musica and played with the Orchestra of the American Institute of Musical Studies “AIMS” in Graz, Austria. 

She founded and managed the Hathora String Quartet and the Pandora String Quartet, was a member of the Mexico String Quartet in Los Angeles and also worked as a sought-after studio recording cellist. She has performed in Mexico, USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Romania, China and Algeria. She has also worked extensively teaching cello, she has taught at the Dallas Suzuki Academy, International Conservatory of Performing Arts in Dallas, the Music Institute of North Texas and the Christian University of Texas at Fort Worth among many others. Belinda moved to Austria in 2016, at the present time she is a freelance cellist. She has performed with various ensembles, including the Original Wiener Strausscapelle, the Vienna Volksoper, the Grazer Salonorchester and Quintett, the Grazer Kammerphilharmonie, and the Styrian Festival Styriarte.