Cellist Isaac Ward, age 17, is a student of Dr. Melissa Kraut, and studies piano with Dr. Timothy Smith at the University of Alaska in his hometown of Anchorage. He was awarded scholarships at the Interlochen Fine Arts Camp where he won the principal chair, and twice to the Tanglewood Institute String Quartet Workshop. His studies have continued in Cleveland at Ascent Cello and Chamber Music Festivals, and at renowned Vivace International Music Festival in North Carolina. His travel is subsidized in part by the Croft String Music Scholarship for Young Musicians. He has twice won the Symphony of Sounds competition, performing the Elgar Cello Concerto and Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. This winter he won the Alaska Youth Orchestras Concerto Competition 2024-25 with Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, performed to sold-out crowds as a featured local musician with the Portland Cello Project, and earned Honorable Mention in the Gustav Mahler Institute Prague 2025 International Competition. Pianist Svetlana Velichko has featured his playing in recordings of her arrangements of vocal works by her mentor Sergei Rachmaninoff. Isaac performs on an 1861 Charles Gaillard cello loaned from Alaska Resounding’s Fine Instrument Initiative for Alaskan musicians.