Principal Cellist Gunnery Sergeant Charlaine Prescott of Alexandria, Va., joined “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra in December 2013. She was appointed principal in April 2018.

Gunnery Sgt. Prescott began her musical training on piano at age 6 and cello at age 10. After graduating in 2005 from West Potomac High School in Alexandria, she attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in cello performance in 2009. In 2011 she completed a master’s degree in classical cello from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) in New York. She studied with Alan Stepansky at MSM, Hans Jørgen Jensen of NU, and Rachel Young of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining “The President’s Own,” she was a Tanglewood Fellowship recipient in 2010 from the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Mass., and received the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award for the 2010 Tanglewood season. She was the S & R Foundation’s 2011 Washington Award Grand Prize winner. She also was principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio and taught privately.

Gunnery Sgt. Prescott performs regularly at the White House for State Dinners, receptions, and other White House functions, and throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.