‘A well-oiled engine that’s ready to go’: what cello does Sterling Elliott play?

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The following is an excerpt from the article ’Sterling Elliott: coming full circle’ in the November 2026 issue of The Strad.

‘I had been borrowing an instrument from Juilliard, having entered the school with a factory-made cello, but no matter how acclaimed you are, you must return the instrument on graduation. I knew I needed to find an alternative but wanted to find the one, and you can’t rush that.

‘One day in 2021, I was working at Tarisio to record their instruments in advance of an auction, when the director Carlos Tome brought out two instruments from the vault for me to try, one of them being a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello. I was allowed to take it out on trial, and I played it for my Hollywood Bowl debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I fell in love.

‘It was way out of my original budget, but Tome said there was someone who knew me – initially wishing to stay anonymous – who was willing to purchase the instrument for me. Later, that was revealed to be Robert Frederick Smith, who I first played for when I was 13 and who went on to become a major patron for the Sphinx Organization! I now have it on loan through Smith’s Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.

‘I call the cello Ginger. It’s incredibly resonant, initially ringing endlessly but lacking projection – like a powerful light that’s dispersed and diffused, in need of focusing. By reworking the set-up, however, I was finally able to get all that resonance to be useful.

‘Despite all the travel we do together, Ginger is like a well-oiled engine that’s absolutely ready to go. Between jet lag and late nights after concerts, you want something that inspires you to open the case, and this cello gives me the same level of excitement every single day – it’s never dwindled at all!’