Cristina Cutts Dougherty

Cristina Cutts Dougherty grew up in South Africa, England, New York, and New Mexico, and was the 2016 Young Artist winner of the International Tuba & Euphonium Competition. That same year, she was unanimously picked as the winner of the National Symphony’s Summer Music Institute concerto competition, performing with the orchestra as a soloist in the Kennedy Center. Upon moving to Los Angeles, she was recognized as the “Most Promising Talent,” of the Pasadena Showcase Instrumental Competition for woodwinds, brass, and strings, and went on in 2017 to win the Grand Prize overall in the same competition – the first tubist in the history of the competition to do so, and the youngest candidate in that year’s final round. She is National YoungArts Foundation Medalist, and has appeared playing orchestrally as the Principal Tubist of the American Youth Symphony, with the New World Symphony, as a fellow with the National Repertory Orchestra, and as a soloist playing the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra.

Cristina graduated with honors from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 2015, where she was a pupil of trombonist Thomas Riccobono for two years. She received her Bachelor of Music in Tuba Performance from the Colburn School, studying with Norman Pearson of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She now attends the Curtis Institute as a student of Paul Kryzwicki, formerly of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Craig Knox of the Pittsburgh Symphony.