Meet the Musicians: Meeka Quan DiLorenzo

By Leilani Polk

Associate Principal Cello Meeka Quan DiLorenzo started playing her instrument at age 6, but it wasn’t until she was 13 that she realized it was the one thing she knew how to do better than anything else, and her seemingly inexhaustible appetite for reading wasn’t something she could make into a career. She turned to longtime teacher Beth Goldenstein for advice.“She said, ‘If you really want to be a professional, you have to practice three hours a day.’ So, I started doing that, and lo and behold, I started getting better.”

Having committed, inspiring teachers and being around other talented musicians during your formative years are also important factors in becoming a successful professional musician. Meeka was lucky enough to have the former early on, and she experienced the latter at 16, after being accepted into the Young Artist Program at Cleveland Institute of Music. She spent the last few years of what would traditionally be high school at the conservatory, which was more akin to starting college early.

She won her first job shortly after graduating from Cleveland, with the Utah Symphony, and she lived in Salt Lake City (where she met her husband, Anthony DiLorenzo, and had her son, Luca) for five years before winning an audition with the Seattle Symphony. She’s been here since 2009 and has been a professional player for 20 seasons.

Living in Seattle has allowed her to pursue some of her favorite pastimes, particularly swimming. “I love to swim. The minute it’s warm enough, I’m in a lake. That’s my happy place, in the water.” Her favorite spot to swim is Kachess Lake, but she says, “there are so many beautiful bodies of water around here, I’ll never get to them all.”

Meeka is still an avid reader. “I read mostly literary fiction but also some notable nonfiction. Memoirs, especially by women of color that I admire. Books pertaining to feminism, social and racial justice, reproductive justice, politics.” She reads all the major prize winners (Booker, Pulitzer, National Book Award), new releases from favorite authors (this year included Geraldine Brooks, Maggie O’Farrell, Ian McEwan and Barbara Kingsolver), and even follows a couple celebrity book clubs (Reese Witherspoon, Oprah). “I’m looking forward to Michelle Obama’s new book because I loved Becoming. And I’m always on the lookout for something that would make a good movie to send to my cousin Beth DeAraujo, who is an up-and-coming film director.”

Though you’ll find Meeka glammed up on stage at Benaroya Hall almost any week of the year, the cellist insists, “I’m not like that at all. I’m just a big goofball who loves to read and swim and hang out with my friends and family.”