photo credit: Eric Snoza
Providence based cellist and songwriter, Zan Berry, is a passionate and creative musician who weaves together diverse musical interests in his work as a performer and educator. With a ceaseless curiosity for exploring new musical contexts for his instrument and collaborating with local artists across disciplines, Zan strives for a more creative, connected, and accessible arts community in Providence.
Zan performs as a member of Verdant Vibes, a new music collective that brings together artists and musicians creating new work in a variety of genres, acoustic and electronic. A staunch advocate for contemporary music, he has also participated in music festivals, including Bang on a Can, New Music on the Point, and Fresh Inc and has helped premiere countless works by young composers. Through his 2020 artist residency at the Music Mansion and initiating the first ever Providence Cello Festival, Zan has designed many unique concert experiences in Providence that have showcased the creative work of local cellists, songwriters, poets, and folk musicians. As a singer-songwriter, he has participated in the Brown Arts Initiative Songwriters workshop, performed live sets at local venues, and he recently released his debut EP of original songs, titled Loveblind.
Community and creativity have been at the forefront of Zan’s work as an educator and activist in Providence. Since 2019, Zan has been a leader for the Tenderloin Opera Company, a theater and music group of homeless people, friends, and advocates that aims to tell stories of homelessness in Rhode Island through writing, music, and performance. Zan has also volunteered weekly as a music mentor at New Urban Arts, a local arts studio that builds a vital community that empowers young people as artists and leaders, and he has designed and led creative music lab classes for a local high school and different arts nonprofits. In 2018, Zan was a featured artist and workshop presenter at the SPIKE Alternative Cello Festival in Dublin, Ireland and he is an avid designer of creativity development cello workshops for students of all ages. Zan recently completed a two-year fellowship with local arts non-profit Community MusicWorks and in 2018- 2019, he was a resident teaching artist with the Newport String Project. Zan received his BM Cello Performance from Vanderbilt University and his MM Cello Performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Felix Wang and Anthony Elliott.