When Ellen Gira steps onto the Strathmore stage this week, she will be standing in a place that shaped her. She grew up here in Potomac, started with piano at a neighbor’s house, picked up a cello at Cabin John Middle School, and performed with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra in the same hall where she now returns as a Strathmore Artist in Residence. She remembers that feeling clearly, saying “playing in that space was really special.”

Gira trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music with a classical career in mind, then a semester at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland changed her course. Glasgow’s open, collaborative folk scene pulled her in. She stayed seven years, earned advanced degrees, taught, gigged, and performed for King Charles III when he was a conservatoire patron. For the record, she will defend haggis: “I think it’s an amazing dish,” she said, noting it gets an unfair reputation in the States. She moved back to Potomac in 2023 carrying a sound braided from two traditions, the Scottish fiddle tunes of her adopted city and the Appalachian roots of her mother’s North Carolina family.

In her hands, the cello becomes rhythm and melody at once. Using a percussive bowing style called ‘the chop’, she builds grooves that give the instrument a heartbeat. In classical settings, cellists “are often being told what to play,” she said, “versus in folk music, we get the freedom to decide what we’re going to play.” The technique, she adds, “allows us to essentially be like a drummer as well as a cellist, which is really fun. We can create a lot of kind of groovy patterns with it.”

Her foundation was built here. Her neighborhood piano teacher was the Juilliard‑trained Agnes Neuman, who shaped her early phrasing. Later she studied with Glenn Garlick of the National Symphony Orchestra and often listened from Kennedy Center seats as he performed.

At eleven she chose her first concert on her own from a Strathmore brochure, “Highland, Heath, and Holler,” a program of Scottish, Irish, and old‑time traditions. “It was just an amazing show,” she said, and “it just kind of got, got me hooked on this style of music.” Afterward she met cellist Natalie Haas whom she remembers as being very warm and encouraging. She left with a CD by Natalie and fiddler Alasdair Fraser, the very first music album she remembers buying for herself. When she points newcomers to other cellists, she also often names Mike Block, whose genre‑crossing work widened her sense of what the instrument can do.

Gira is part of Strathmore’s Artist in Residence cohort this season, a program that pairs emerging leaders with mentors and invites them to create together. Tonight’s debut in the Music Center opens with the full cohort, moves through individual features, and closes with everyone back onstage. Expect her to front a Scottish tune while colleagues thread in lines from jazz, Mexican folk, and neo‑soul. The finale is a Stevie Wonder chart that, she said, “it’s a real unifying feeling,” the kind of closing that sends an audience out smiling.

She records and tours with fiddler Jocelyn Pettit; their first duo album, All It Brings, won Traditional Album of the Year at the 2024 Canadian Folk Music Awards, and a follow‑up arrived this year. She co‑founded Vandalia, an Appalachian‑forward trio that draws from Cajun and Scandinavian traditions. Tracking for the first album is complete, and an album‑release concert is slated for her first Strathmore Mansion date in April 2026. Last month she also began a duo record with Scottish fiddler Seán Heely, exploring both new tunes and eighteenth‑century cello‑fiddle dance music.

Teaching remains part of her week, at the School of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park and privately. Her advice to young cellists is direct: “Definitely listen to as many non classical cellists as you can,” and “just experiment and see what happens.” Before a big hall debut, keep perspective. “Just keep going, and it’s all about being in the moment and sharing your passion for the music with the audience.”

The Strathmore’s Artists in Residence Class of 2026 Debut Concert will take place on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025 at 8:00pm in The Music Center. Purchase tickets here