Cellist Amanda Forsyth Assaulted by Driver

The Canadian cellist was confronted by a driver picking her up from the airport while on tour in California

(Photo credit: Jennifer Taylor)

Forsyth was traveling with her instrument and her dog to California’s Segerstrom Arts Center as part of a tour with her husband violinist Pinchas Zukerman and the Jerusalem Quartet. 

After her flight, a company limo driver pushed and shoved her to the ground of the parking lot, complaining about her dog — despite the dog being "approved by [the limo] company" to travel with Forsyth in the vehicle. 

She sustained minor cuts and bruises and was grateful that she wasn’t holding her cello, which “would have been broken,” as stated in her Facebook post. Forsyth plays on a rare 1699 cello by Carlo Giuseppe Testore.

“Despite the physical assault I experienced from the driver at the airport, who threw me on the cement ground of the parking lot complaining about my dog, we will perform tonight with love with my friends and fantastic musicians,” Forsyth later posted on her social media. 

The Jerusalem Quartet comprises violinists Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler, violist Ori Kam, and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov. They have been performing alongside Zukerman and Forsyth in a program of Bruckner, Dvořák, and Brahms.

The final concert of their tour with this program will take place in The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada on November 8, 2021.