SF Symphony Welcomes Starla Breshears as New Section Cellist

The San Francisco Symphony will welcome section cellist Starla Breshears (Gary & Kathleen Heidenreich Second Century Campaign Chair) to the Orchestra's roster beginning in the 2026–27 season.

Starla Breshears is a Kohl Scholar currently studying at the Colburn Music Academy with Clive Greensmith. She was formerly a Joseph Chan Scholarship recipient at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Academy, where she studied from 2015 to 2025 with Richard Aaron and Jean-Michel Fonteneau. She began studying cello at age three with Yoshie Muratani and has received additional coaching from Christine Walevska and Sergei Riabtchenko. 

A prize winner of both the Stulberg International String Competition and Johansen International Competition, Breshears has soloed with 18 orchestras since the age of six. One of her former ensembles, the Breshears String Quartet, has been featured twice on the Violin Channel and on NPR's From the Top. The quartet won first prize in the 2023 Piero Farulli International Competition, which led to a tour in Italy, and received the silver medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2024. 

Breshears served as a principal cello of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in the 2024–25 season and as assistant principal cello in the San Francisco Choral Society. She has also participated in leading summer programs, including the Yellow Barn Young Artists program, the Greenwood Music Camp, and Accademia Musicale Chigiana. Having been chosen as a YoungArts Winner with Distinction, she participated in National YoungArts Week in Florida in January. She recently won the Shkolnikova Academy concerto competition, for which she will perform a concerto with the Shkolnikova Academy String Orchestra at the Château de La Flocellière in France this August.