Amanda Rice-Johnston

Amanda Rice-Johnston, a native of Northern Virginia, currently serves as Principal Bass of the Westmoreland Symphony. She frequently performs with the Wheeling Symphony, the Pittsburgh Opera, the Pittsburgh Ballet, the Erie Philharmonic, the Akron Symphony, and the West Virginia Symphony. In 2010 she was appointed Principal Bass of Opera Cleveland. Amanda is involved in many other musical initiatives within Pittsburgh, including the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and the Kassia Ensemble.

Having studied at Michigan State University she went on to earn her Masters of Music with at Temple University. After finishing her studies at there, Amanda came to Pittsburgh as a post-graduate fellow of Carnegie Mellon University's Performance Residency program, where she studied with Jeffrey Turner, Principal Bass of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Amanda currently resides in Pittsburgh's historic Squirrel Hill district where she moonlights as a Certified Cheesemonger and spends more time than she should attempting to teach her cat to sing Ode the Joy.