Jay Campbell
cello
Cellist Jay Campbell has been recognized around the world for approaching both old and new works with equally probing curiosity and emotional commitment. His performances have been described as "brilliant and insatiably inquisitive," "electrifying," and "prodigious" by The New York Times, and "gentle, poignant, and deeply moving" by The Washington Post.
The only musician ever to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants—in 2016 as a soloist and again in 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet—Campbell made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013. In 2016, he worked with Alan Gilbert as artistic director of Ligeti Forward, part of the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Met. In 2017, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, premiering Luca Francesconi's concerto Das Ding Singt. In 2018, he appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has recorded the concertos of George Perle and Marc-André Dalbavie with the Seattle Symphony. In 2022, he returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as curator and cellist for a Green Umbrella concert, premiering concertos by Wadada Leo Smith, and inti figgis-vizueta, and in the 2023-24 season he premiered Andreia Pinto-Correia's Reverdecer with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil.
Campbell has collaborated with numerous musicians, including Catherine Lamb, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, and Tyshawn Sorey, among others. His close association with John Zorn resulted in two discs of new works for cello, Hen to Pan (2015) and Azoth (2020). As a chamber musician, he is a member of the JACK Quartet, as well as the Junction Trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao, and multidisciplinary collective AMOC.