Mary Brook performs on Show 449.

Mary Brook Hartmann (cello/composer), 17, is a senior at The Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. She studies cello with Richard Aaron, Professor of Cello at The Juilliard School and the University of Michigan, and with Latitude 49 cellist Max Geissler. She studies in the Michael P. Hammond Preparatory Program at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music with esteemed composer and professor Dr. Pierre Jalbert.

Mary Brook has played in lessons and master classes for renowned cellists such as Natasha Brofsky, Hans Jensen, Paul Watson, Paul Katz, Norman Fischer, Steven Doane, Darrett Adkins, and Wendy Warner. She has been a First Prize winner at the Bonn (Germany) Grand Prize Virtuoso International Music Competition, the Clear Lake Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition, and the Helen and Immanuel B. Olshan Concerto Competition. She has performed as a soloist with the Virtuosi of Houston Young Artists Chamber Orchestra, the Clear Lake Symphony Orchestra, the Kinder HSPVA Symphony Orchestra, and at Kammermusikaal in Bonn, Germany, birthplace of Beethoven.

At age 14, Mary Brook wrote and premiered her first composition under the tutelage of Rice graduate student composer Grace Ann Lee. She won the 2022 high school division of the Voices of Change Young Composers Competition and was recently awarded Honorable Mention at the MTNA Texas Composition Competition. Her works have been premiered by student and professional musicians at Rice University, Cleveland Institute of Music, SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, and have been recorded by Kinetic Ensemble.

An avid chamber player, Mary Brook trains at Opus 1 Chamber Music School in Houston under the mentorship of co-directors Dr. Marisa Ishikawa and From the Top alumnus Dr. Matt Lammers. She hopes to study both cello performance and composition in college. Outside of music she enjoys exploring the diverse Houston food scene with friends, particularly Texas food trucks.