Cellist Will Savage is 12 years old and in seventh grade at Lakewood Middle School in Overland Park. He studies cello with Susie Yang, of the Kansas City Symphony. Will made his concerto debut at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall with the Kansas City Civic Orchestra in 2022 as winner of the Chatelaine Young Artist Competition. He is winner of the 2023 Kansas state MTNA Junior Strings Competition, and he was the 2022 Kansas state representative in the Division finals. Selected as a Young Artist in the Friends of Chamber Music-Heartland Chamber Music Year-round Scholarship program, Will has enjoyed the last three summers of chamber music at the Heartland Chamber Music Festival led by Jackie Lee, as well as the last two summers at the Chicago Suzuki Institute. Will has also been fortunate to participate in Destiny Mermagen’s Prairie Classical intergenerational chamber orchestra and chamber music programs, as well as to play alongside cellist Michael Mermagen, UMKC Professor of Cello. Will actively supports young composers by playing their music, and he enjoys composing and arranging works for himself and his friends. He dreams of playing Mahler as a cellist in the New York Philharmonic and writing a symphony someday. Will started studying when he was three in Washington state with Sheila Kilcoyne, after falling in love with the cello and begging to start lessons as a one-year-old. He also enjoys basketball, ping-pong, board games, reading, playing outside with friends, Minecraft, and cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs.