A pioneer and visionary in the music world, cellist Fred Sherry has introduced audiences on five continents to contemporary music through his close association with composers including Milton Babbitt, Luciano Berio, Lukas Foss, Elliott Carter, Toru Takemitsu, and Charles Wuorinen. He has been a member of the group for Contemporary Music, Berio's Juilliard Ensemble, Tashi, and Speculum Musicae. Since the 1970s, Sherry has been an active performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and was its Artistic Director from 1988 to 1992; recently, he organized the Lincoln Center new music festival A Great Day in New York . Currently, he is a member of the cello and chamber music faculty of the Juilliard School and a guest teacher at the Britten-Pears School Contemporary Music Course. In this interview, he discusses his formative influences, his performance aesthetic, and the treatise on contemporary string playing he is presently writing.