ABOUT QUENTON XAVIER BLACHE

Quenton Xavier Blache is a cellist and composer based in Los Angeles and a graduate of the University of Southern California (USC) Thornton School of Music. He has a bachelor's degree in cello performance and music composition, and a minor in Chinese. He is currently attending USC's acclaimed master’s program in screen scoring. Quenton has performed in Carnegie Hall, South America, Europe, and Asia as a member of Sphinx Virtuosi, a professional string ensemble of Black and Latinx players, and National Youth Orchestra USA. He soloed the Dvorak Concerto with the Peninsula Symphony in February 2022. In August 2022, he performed in France as a member of the USC Honors Quartet at the Rencontres franco-américaines de Musique de Chambre Festival in collaboration with musicians from the Paris Conservatory. Serving as a cello hand double and background musician actor in the Blumhouse Productions 2020 Amazon Prime movie Nocturne allowed him to merge his love of music and film. He is the 2021 winner of the USC Bach Competition, Undergraduate Division, the 2023 winner of the USC Strings Concerto Competition, and will perform Bloch's Schelomo with the Thornton Symphony in October 2023.

As a composer, Quenton has written works for the Little Orchestra Society, North Carolina Chamber Music Institute, MYCO Youth Chamber Orchestra, Sphinx Organization and more. His most recent string orchestra work Habari Gani will be performed by the Sphinx Virtuosi for their 2023-24 tour, including a New York premiere in Carnegie Hall in October 2023. He is especially passionate about composition for visual media and has scored numerous short films and documentaries. Quenton was also the composer for the Resilience Project, a climate change “art-ivist” performance series that is a part of the inaugural USC Arts and Climate Collective. In his spare time, he enjoys playing chess and aspires to be an International Master (IM). Quenton has studied composition under Andrew Norman, Veronika Krausas, Ted Hearne, Frank Ticheli, and Nina Young. He has studied cello under Jacob Wenger, co-founder of the North Raleigh School of Music, and Nathaniel Yaffe, recording engineer and cellist of the North Carolina Symphony. He currently studies composition under celebrated composer Donald Crockett and cello under accomplished cellist Andrew Shulman.