Biography
Residing in Brooklyn, violinist Johnny Gandelsman helped establish the string quartet Brooklyn Rider as one of its founding members. Earlier associations also included Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and the New York chamber orchestra The Knights, after which he issued his first solo recording in 2018. Multiple albums document his work with Brooklyn Rider and The Knights, while 2024 brought an appearance on the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's film Megalopolis. Beyond performance, Gandelsman has earned recognition as a Grammy-winning producer.
Moscow-born on March 27, 1978, he spent his formative years in the Soviet Union and Israel within a household of professional musicians. Father Yuri performed on viola with the Israel Philharmonic and the Fine Arts Quartet, while mother Janna pursues a career as a classical pianist and sister Natasha maintains an active violin schedule that encompasses the Israel Camerata. At age seventeen in 1995 Gandelsman moved to the United States to enroll at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.
In 2005, alongside violinist Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Eric Jacobsen, he launched Brooklyn Rider. The ensemble records music by established figures such as Beethoven and Philip Glass yet also champions pieces by emerging composers and presents original works. Outside classical circles the quartet has joined forces with artists ranging from Béla Fleck and Suzanne Vega to Kojiro Umezaki and Gabriel Kahane. Its first release, Passport, appeared in 2008 on Gandelsman's In a Circle label. During the same period he contributed to Silk Road Ensemble projects, among them Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon (2005) and New Impossibilities (2008). Brooklyn Rider's fourth album, Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass, arrived in 2011, coinciding with debuts at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Mercury Classics issued The Impostor in 2013, featuring banjo pieces by Béla Fleck performed with the Nashville Symphony and Brooklyn Rider. The following year The Brooklyn Rider Almanac presented commissioned quartets from figures including Bill Frisell, Aoife O'Donovan, Deerhoof's Greg Saunier, and Wilco's Glenn Kotche. While maintaining quartet commitments, Gandelsman continued recording with The Knights and supplied violin on Aoife O'Donovan's early-2016 release In the Magic Hour. Later that year Brooklyn Rider partnered with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter on So Many Things, a collection of classical and pop material that featured cellist Michael Nicolas after Eric Jacobsen departed to concentrate on conducting.
Early 2017 brought Gandelsman a Grammy for co-producing the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma's Best World Music Album Sing Me Home. He also issued two further Brooklyn Rider albums, toured with von Otter, Béla Fleck, and Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, and undertook a solo Bach recital series. His self-produced debut on In a Circle Records, J.S. Bach: Complete Sonatas & Partitas for Violin, reached number one on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart at the start of 2018. A transcribed reading of Bach's solo-cello suites followed in 2020, succeeded in 2022 by This Is America: An Anthology, 2020-2021. In 2024 he appeared on the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, scored by Osvaldo Golijov.
Moscow-born on March 27, 1978, he spent his formative years in the Soviet Union and Israel within a household of professional musicians. Father Yuri performed on viola with the Israel Philharmonic and the Fine Arts Quartet, while mother Janna pursues a career as a classical pianist and sister Natasha maintains an active violin schedule that encompasses the Israel Camerata. At age seventeen in 1995 Gandelsman moved to the United States to enroll at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.
In 2005, alongside violinist Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Eric Jacobsen, he launched Brooklyn Rider. The ensemble records music by established figures such as Beethoven and Philip Glass yet also champions pieces by emerging composers and presents original works. Outside classical circles the quartet has joined forces with artists ranging from Béla Fleck and Suzanne Vega to Kojiro Umezaki and Gabriel Kahane. Its first release, Passport, appeared in 2008 on Gandelsman's In a Circle label. During the same period he contributed to Silk Road Ensemble projects, among them Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon (2005) and New Impossibilities (2008). Brooklyn Rider's fourth album, Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass, arrived in 2011, coinciding with debuts at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Mercury Classics issued The Impostor in 2013, featuring banjo pieces by Béla Fleck performed with the Nashville Symphony and Brooklyn Rider. The following year The Brooklyn Rider Almanac presented commissioned quartets from figures including Bill Frisell, Aoife O'Donovan, Deerhoof's Greg Saunier, and Wilco's Glenn Kotche. While maintaining quartet commitments, Gandelsman continued recording with The Knights and supplied violin on Aoife O'Donovan's early-2016 release In the Magic Hour. Later that year Brooklyn Rider partnered with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter on So Many Things, a collection of classical and pop material that featured cellist Michael Nicolas after Eric Jacobsen departed to concentrate on conducting.
Early 2017 brought Gandelsman a Grammy for co-producing the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma's Best World Music Album Sing Me Home. He also issued two further Brooklyn Rider albums, toured with von Otter, Béla Fleck, and Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, and undertook a solo Bach recital series. His self-produced debut on In a Circle Records, J.S. Bach: Complete Sonatas & Partitas for Violin, reached number one on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart at the start of 2018. A transcribed reading of Bach's solo-cello suites followed in 2020, succeeded in 2022 by This Is America: An Anthology, 2020-2021. In 2024 he appeared on the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, scored by Osvaldo Golijov.
Albums
