Cleo Goldberg

Percussion

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Cleo Goldberg (they/them) is a native Chicagoan and a deeply passionate musician that enjoys teaching, directing, and performing in a vast array of settings. As an orchestral percussionist, they have appeared at festivals across the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and have performed at several international solo competitions including TROMP Percussion Eindhoven (the Netherlands). They have conducted large ensembles such as the Chamber Orchestra of New York and the Lviv Philharmonic (Ukraine) and are the founder of the Millennial Chamber Players, which gave its debut concert in May 2019 following a fully-funded Kickstarter campaign.

Cleo is a teaching assistant with the Percussion Scholarship Group, a program of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Negaunee Music Institute, which they were a proud member of for nine years (2004-2013). During their time as a student in the program, they received honors such as the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award from NPR’s From the Top, a Merit Award from the National YoungArts Foundation, an Emerson Scholarship from the Interlochen Center for the Arts, solo performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Sinfonietta, and an invitation to participate in the inaugural tour of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA.

Cleo completed their Bachelor of Music degree in percussion performance at Manhattan School of Music (MSM) where they studied with Christopher Lamb (New York Philharmonic), Duncan Patton (Metropolitan Opera), Kyle Zerna (New York Philharmonic) and She-e Wu. Following graduation from MSM, they studied conducting with Mark Shapiro at the Juilliard Evening Division and with Michael Jinbo at the Pierre Monteux School. They started working on their Master of Music Education and Certification degree at the VanderCook College of Music in August 2019. Apart from music, Eric’s passions include wellness, mental health awareness, LGTBQ+ equality, the POC community, and dogs. They also perform as a drag queen under the name Manic Maxxie.