Toronto-based cellist Lucia Ticho is active as a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and educator. Her work is rooted in a belief in the many possibilities of music, from traditional symphonic concerts to interdisciplinary collaborations and educational initiatives, with a commitment to meeting each audience where they are and creating experiences that feel meaningful to them.

Lucia has been a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 2022 and has also performed with the Houston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and Santa Fe Opera. While orchestral playing is central to her musical identity, she feels strongly about pursuing many other forms of music-making. In 2024, she joined the Bedford Piano Trio, a longstanding Toronto ensemble that prioritizes collaboration with emerging artists across disciplines. With the group, she has premiered more than twenty new piano trio works by Toronto-based composers, including a recent commission by the University of Toronto’s Dr. Norbert Palej. The trio also annually self-produces IMMERSED, a concert series bringing together choreographers, dancers, and digital animation artists from Toronto’s high schools and universities.

As a recitalist, Lucia appears annually at festivals and concert series across North America, including Houston’s award-winning DACAMERA, the Gibson Classical Concert Series in Toronto, Music Around the Corner in Toronto, and Chamber Music @ New Park in Ithaca, New York. Her solo engagements include concerti with the Brampton Rose Orchestra, the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles in Chicago, where she was born and raised.

Alongside her performing career, Lucia is passionate about teaching and expanding access to music education. A certified Suzuki method instructor, she taught more than 50 workshops in K–8 classrooms throughout the Houston Independent School District from 2021 to 2022. The following year, she provided tuition-free music instruction to more than 50 elementary school children living in Toronto Community Housing as a lead artist for Axis Music. She also maintains a robust private cello studio, and her students have been accepted to competitive bachelor’s programs at the University of Toronto, Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She regularly coaches the Toronto Youth Symphony Orchestra and serves as a guest clinician at the University of Toronto and the Taylor Academy at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Lucia holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School. She also completed one year of doctoral study at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Her primary mentors include Richard Aaron, Tanya Carey, Timothy Eddy, and Brinton Smith. She is an alumna of the Aspen, Bowdoin, Orford, and Sarasota Music Festivals, as well as the National Youth Orchestra of the United States and the New York String Orchestra Seminar. Lucia plays on a 1930 cello made in Mantua by Gaetano Gadda.