Mary Frances DiBartolo

Dr. Mary Frances DiBartolo is assistant principal cellist of the Arizona Opera Orchestra, section cellist of the West Valley Symphony, assistant principal of the Tucson Pops Orchestra, and Instructor of Cello and Chamber Music/Director of the PVCC Cello Ensemble at Paradise Valley Community College. DiBartolo is an avid chamber musician, continuo player and recording studio artist, and is a substitute/extra musician with the Tucson and Phoenix Symphonies and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. DiBartolo is an in-demand educator, and from 1993-2010, was on faculty at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ) as Senior Lecturer of Cello and Chamber Music, and Coordinator of Chamber and Event Music for the NAU School of Music. 

A faculty artist at the Orfeo and Schlern International Music Festivals/Italy, and at the InterHarmony International Music Festival in the Berkshires, DiBartolo taught, performed, and coached chamber music. She has performed in many notable national and international festivals including the Spoleto Italy/USA Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Festival, Animas Festival, Red Rocks Festival, Arizona Opera Wagner Ring Cycle Festival, and the Lancaster USA Festival. DiBartolo's orchestral career spans thirty-five years. Dr. DiBartolo was an inaugural fellow of Michael Tilson Thomas's renowned New World Symphony, and has performed with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, the Cincinnati Ballet & Chamber Orchestras, Seattle's Northwest Chamber & Ballet Orchestras, and the Tucson Ballet Orchestra. Her vast symphonic experience includes performances with the orchestras of Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Fort Wayne, Dayton, Naples, West Virginia, Omaha, Lincoln, Charleston, and Columbus (OH). DiBartolo, a musicians union member from the age of 19, has held several American Federation of Musician (AFofM) orchestra positions, won through national auditions.

DiBartolo is a sought-after private teacher and maintains studios in Scottsdale and Tempe, AZ. She has presented at the National ASTA Conferences and AMEA, and was a featured clinician at the ASTA Tucson Cello Congress and the ASTA Cellobration in Phoenix. DiBartolo is a sectionals coach for the PYS (Phoenix Youth Symphonies), and regularly adjudicates the Arizona Regionals/All-State Orchestra auditions, the Phoenix Youth Symphony auditions, the ASTA Solo Competition, and the Arizona Musicfest Young Musicians Instrumentalist Competition (solo and chamber music), amongst others.

DiBartolo is a highly requested continuo player, and has collaborated with the St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church Choir and Chamber Orchestra, The La Casa de Cristo Sanctuary Choir, the Paradise Valley United Methodist Church Chorale & Paradise Singers, the Scottsdale Choral Artists, the (formerly) Phoenix Bach Choir, the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, the Mount St. Mary’s Seminary/Athenaeum of Ohio Orchestras, the St. James Church Concert Series of Seattle, and the First Plymouth Congregational Church Abendmusik Series, Lincoln, NE.

Adept at many styles and genres, DiBartolo can be heard on New Age Artist Chris Spheeris’ CD “Dancing with the Muse,” trumpeter and vocalist Chuck Curry’s CD “Late Bloom,” and can be seen performing in the John Tesh/PBS “One World” video filmed, in part, in Monument Valley, Utah.

Dr. DiBartolo holds degrees from the University of Arizona (DMA), The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music: CCM (MM), and, following studies at Northwestern University, the University of Iowa (BM).