Cristina Cutts

Cristina Cutts Dougherty (b.1998) grew up in South Africa, England, New York and New Mexico and was the 2016 Tuba Young Artist winner of the International Tuba Euphonium Competition. In 2017, she won the Grand Prize in the Pasadena Showcase Instrumental Competition – the first tubist in the history of the competition to do so and the youngest competitor in that year’s final round. She has performed as a soloist at the Kennedy Center and with the Colburn Orchestra. Cristina was the tubist for the National Repertory Orchestra in 2018, has been recognized as a National YoungArts Foundation Medalist, and is the 2020-21 Tuba fellow for the Music Academy of the West. She currently holds the position of principal tuba of Symphony in C in Camden, NJ, and in 2020 she joined the guest artist roster of the internationally acclaimed Seraph Brass Quintet. 

Cristina graduated with honors from the Interlochen Arts Academy as a student of Thomas Riccobono, and went on to receive her Bachelor of Music from the Colburn School, studying with Norman Pearson of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She is now a student of Craig Knox of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Paul Krzywicki at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia; the first female tubist to attend the school since its founding in 1924.