Ella Fredrickson
Librarian

Photo Credit: Jim Lennon

Ella M. Fredrickson has been “connecting the dots” in music in her hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida for more than two decades. She graduated from the University of Miami, Frost School of Music with a performance degree in violoncello.

As the music concierge of Tropical Zone Music, Ella might be found working on anything from music copying and editing symphonic and chamber music or working backstage on theatrical productions – to being the music ambassador for “Too Hot To Handel: The Gospel Messiah.”

Ella is passionate about discovering new ways to create, collaborate, and explore artistic excellence for live performance. Her background as a professional musician fuels her imagination for the unexpected (playing Theremin!) and she has the tenacity to dream about ways to bridge the gap between classical and contemporary music in the 21st century. Behind the scenes, Ella has played an integral part producing many interesting projects: “CSI: Beethoven” Symphonic Stage Shows; the Studio@620 series “An Intimate Collaboration” (art, poetry, chamber music); a Frank Zappa Symposium at the Dalí Museum, and multi-media presentations for Siècle des Lumières Entertainment.

Ella attributes her devotion of modern music in performance from her years of working with noted conductor Marin Alsop, dozens of extraordinary (living) composers and musicians of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary in Santa Cruz, California. Of the many notable mentors throughout her career in music, working with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas at the New World Symphony (where she was the founding librarian) gave her the widest perspective of the symphonic world.

When she isn’t sharpening a pencil or pouring over manuscript scores while engraving music, Ella is probably listening to music on vinyl, busy reading up on the latest orchestra world news or quilting. She enjoys being a part of the St. Petersburg arts community and looks forward to all the possibilities of forming new partnerships and collaborations with artists, poets, composers, and making music matter in the greater Tampa Bay area and beyond.

Ella is an Honorary Member and Past-President of MOLA: An Association of Music Performance Librarians and is a member of the AFM Local 427-721.