Hailed by The New Yorker as a “superb young soloist,” NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the UnitedStates and abroad. In The New York Times his playing was praised as “impassioned … the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis’s rich, alluring tone.”

Recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor Symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, and the New Haven Symphony as Artist-in-Residence; Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including appearances in London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls; and recitals across North America with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Brown. He made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in 2015.

Mr. Canellakis is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which he performs regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally. He is also a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Wolf Trap, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Music in the Vineyards, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He has recently been renewed as the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona, in Arizona, where he has made a major impact through his dynamic programming and educational and community outreach.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley and Paul Katz, and he was a student of Madeleine Golz at Manhattan School of Music Pre-College. He began his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center career as a member of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), and he has also been in residence at Carnegie Hall as a member of Ensemble Connect.

Filmmaking and acting are special interests of Mr. Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series “Conversations with Nick Canellakis.” His latest film, “Thin Walls,” was nominated for awards at many prominent film festivals. His films and videos can be found on his website: nicholascanellakis.com.

JAY CAMPBELL is a cellist actively exploring a wide range of creative music. He has been recognized for approaching both old and new music with the same curiosity and commitment, and his performances have been called “electrifying” 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 — Jay made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and in 2016, he worked with Alan Gilbert as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward, part of the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2017, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival along with frequent collaborator Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he also gave the premiere of Luca Francesconi’s cello concerto Das Ding Singt with Matthias Pintscher. In 2018 he appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has recorded the concertos of George Perle and Marc-Andre Dalbavie with the Seattle Symphony, and in 2023/24 will premiere a new cello concerto, Reverdecer, by Andreia Pinto-Correia with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal and in Brazil with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. In 2022 he returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as curator and cellist for his second Green Umbrella concert, where he premiered new concertos by Wadada Leo Smith and inti figgis-vizueta.

Jay’s primary artistic interest is the collaboration with living creative musicians and has worked in this capacity with Catherine Lamb, Helmut Lachenmann, John Luther Adams, Liza Lim, Marcos Balter, Tyshawn Sorey, and many others. His close association with John Zorn has resulted in two discs of new works for cello, Hen to Pan (2015) and Azoth (2020). Deeply committed as a chamber musician, he is the cellist of the JACK Quartet as well as the Junction Trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao.

MAIYA PAPACH is the principal violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A member of the orchestra since 2008, she has made solo appearances with the SPCO in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with concertmaster Steven Copes, solo directed Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae and as soloist in Woolrich’s Ulysses Awakes. 

Papach has made frequent national and international appearances as a chamber musician, with a versatile profile in her performances of both traditional and contemporary repertoire. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with whom she has performed frequently at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and dozens of experimental venues. She has toured extensively in the former Soviet Union with the Da Capo Chamber Players, across North America with Musicians from Marlboro, and has made appearances at Prussia Cove (UK), the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, the Chattanooga Chamber Music Festival and Chamber Music Quad Cities. She is also currently a member of Accordo, a Twin Cities-based chamber music group. 

Papach is a 2013 recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians administered by the MacPhail Center for Music. Through this fellowship and in collaboration with ICE, she co-commissioned a viola concerto by Anthony Cheung, performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival to critical acclaim by the New York Times. She is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and the Juilliard School, and her principal teachers include Roland Vamos, Karen Tuttle, Benny Kim and Hsin-Yun Huang. She performs on a 19th century Turinese viola by Annibale Fagnola.

She enjoys spending time with her wife, kids, and furry animals in her free time.