Olivia Gay is one of France’s most prominent emerging cellists with engagements both in Europe and abroad including recent performances at Carnegie Hall, Salle Cortot (Paris), and the Salzburger Festspiele.

She has collaborated in concert and in her recordings with many celebrated musicians including pianists Jean-François Zygel, Vanessa Wagner, Laure Favre Kahn, Celia Oneto Ben Said, Celimène Daudet, Simon Ghraichy, accordionist Basha Slavinska, the Van Kuijk quartet, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Orchestre des Jeunes du Centre, orchestre Pasdeloup, orchestre de chambre La Folia, Orchestre Jan Talich de Prague, and the Philharmonie Südwestfalen.

Olivia grew up near Mulhouse where she began studying the cello at an early age. She continued her studies in Strasbourg and Paris under the tutelage of Marc Coppey, Paul Meyer and  Éric Le Sage and the Quatuor Ysaye, before traveling to Germany where she studied with J. G Queyras at the Musikhochschuke in Stuttgart and Freiburg and finished her studies in the performance class of Johannes Moser. She was the laureate of multiple competitions including the Leopold Bellan International Competition (1st prize), the A. Glazounov Competition (1st prize), and the Concours International de Cordes de Gerardmer (1st prize and audience prize), among others. 

Olivia plays on a 1733 Montagnana cello, on long-term loan from the Beare’s International Violin Society.