Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida was appointed by Lorin Maazel as principal oboe of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1991. For two years prior, she was associate principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. She has been featured with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in concertos by J.S. Bach, Françaix, Haydn, Mozart, R. Strauss, Vaughan Williams, and more, conducted by the likes of Sir Andrew Davis, Manfred Honeck, Lorin Maazel, Sir Andre Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Jeanette Sorrell, and Pinchas Zukerman. In 2009, DeAlmeida travelled to Berlin to perform and record the German Requiem of Brahms with Marek Janowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSB) on the Pentatone label. She was a faculty member of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California from 2002-2020. Several of her performances there have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today. DeAlmeida has also performed at the La Jolla Festival in La Jolla, California, and the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont as well as several “Music from Marlboro” tours. She has been associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Music since 2012, and a faculty member there since 1991. She has taught at the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland and the New World Symphony. She has given masterclasses at universities in the United States and abroad including the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Tennessee, Eastern Michigan University, the University of South Carolina, and Seoul Conservatory. She participates in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement department playing and speaking to young people in various venues throughout the Pittsburgh area. DeAlmeida is grateful to her teachers, including Sarah Young, Robert Sorton, Elaine Douvas, John Mack, H. Robert Reynolds, and Max Rudolf. She proudly plays on F. Lorée oboes of Paris. This is her first appearance at PMF.