Cellist Wayne Foster-Smith is chamber music coordinator at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. Prior to assuming this position he taught cello, chamber music and theory in the Starling Project at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and theory and ear training at the Juilliard School. As director of the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program, he founded a master class series and presented yearly concerts in Merkin and Weil Halls. Foster-Smith taught cello and chamber music for many summers at the Aspen Music School in Aspen, Colorado and at the Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont. He has presented masterclasses in Paris, Berlin, Italy, Denmark, Iceland and Australia. Foster-Smith was the cellist of the Newberry Quartet and founder and director of the Edgehill Ensemble in New York City. He was principal cellist of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and performed with the New Haven, Stamford and Aspen Chamber Orchestras. His teachers have included Daniel Pollack (piano), Henri Lazarof and Joel Hoffman (composition), and Gabor Rejto, Yehuda Hanani, Harvey Shapiro and Leonard Rose (cello).
An advocate of new music, Foster-Smith has premiered works by such composers as Gudmundur Hafsteinsson and Ron Minor and has a special interest in the works of Halsey Stevens and Ursula Mamlok. Recently he co-organized a festival of four concerts at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin dedicated exclusively to the music of György Kurtág. Amongst his former students are members of the Calder and Daedalus Quartets.