Riana Anthony was born in 1993 and raised in Yamagata, Japan. She began studying the cello at the age of nine under the cellist Kurata Sumiko. She received her undergraduate degree from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, studying under cellists Julie Albers and Hans Jørgen Jensen. She completed her graduate studies under the tutelage of Hans Jørgen Jensen at Northwestern University (USA).

Riana was a Fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and has participated in other programs including the Schiermonnikoog Festival, the Cello Akademie Rutesheim Masterclasses, the Mortitzburg Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Gstaad String Academy at the Menuhin Festival, the PyeongChang Music Festival and the Summer Campus at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. She also received a scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein and participated in the intensive music weeks held there.

As a young musician, Riana received prizes at several competitions, including two awards at the “MTNA Senior String Competition”, the “52nd annual scholarship from the Honolulu Morning Music Club” and the 1st Prize of the “Iolani Concerto Competition”. She also won awards at the “Osaka’s Izuminomori Cello and Contrabass Festival” for two consecutive years and is the 1st prize winner of the “Samuel and Elinor Thaviu String Performance Competition” 2017. As the 1st prize winner of the 2016 “Dover Quartet Competition”, WFMT’s “Music in Chicago” broadcasted her quartet’s performance of the Lutoslawski String Quartet quartet. Riana’s latest Stellio Piano Trio was a recent prizewinner of the “Plowman Chamber Music Competition”. 

Since moving to Honolulu, Hawaii, Riana has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia. She made her Honolulu Symphony debut at the age of twelve. The Shanghai City Symphony Orchestra featured her in 2014 as a soloist in their performance of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor. In the same season, she completed a recital tour in China, including a solo performance in the Future Masters Concert Series at the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai. In 2016, she made her Kennedy Center debut through the Conservatory Project and performed solo recitals in the US, China, and Denmark. She also performed with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Victor Yampolsky. 

An avid chamber musician, Riana was invited to the Rome Chamber Music Festival for four seasons and is a returning Newdome Fellowship Artist at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. Since September 2017, she is an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel under the guidance of Gary Hoffman. 

Riana is a recent recipient of The Jerome and Elaine Nerenberg Foundation Scholarships from the Musician’s Club of Women in Chicago. 

She plays a fine 18th century cello by William Forster.