Nick Photinos

Nick Photinos' appointment as Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar began on Aug. 15, 2023.

​Four-time Grammy Award-winning cellist Nick Photinos is one of the most innovative and multifaceted cellists of our time. An ardent advocate of new music, he has worked closely with many of the foremost composers of this era and has premiered hundreds of works throughout his career. He has received Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year Award, the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, the inaugural Chamber Music America Visionary Award, the Naumburg Award and the Concert Artists Guild Grand Prize.

Described as a "commanding soloist" (ClevelandClassical.com) whose "virtuoso cello playing is scintillating" (Chicago Classical Review) and "outstanding for his exquisite precision" (SFCV.org), Photinos has collaborated and toured with an incredible array of artists including rock/pop artists Björk, Wilco, Bryce Dessner and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, film composer Gustavo Santaolalla, classical artists Dawn Upshaw, Philip Glass, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and jazz artists including Sheila Jordan, Laurence Hobgood, Zach Brock and Matt Ulery. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Toronto, Utah and Atlanta Symphonies, the last with whom he recorded Jennifer Higdon’s On a Wire. He has performed across the globe including at the Sydney Opera House, the Barbican in London, KBC Hall in Seoul, Carnegie Hall in New York City, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles and Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver.

Photinos recently gave solo debuts in Australia, Romania and Canada, as well as solo and chamber concerts throughout the United States. He has performed across nine US states and returned as a soloist to the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, where he has taught since 2007. In 2019 he reached millions of listeners on "Live from Here" with Chris Thile and on Netflix's original movie The Two Popes.

Photinos’ recordings span the Cedille, Nonesuch, New Amsterdam, Greenleaf and Naxos labels. He recorded for Wilco on their Grammy-nominated album The Whole Love, and with Autumn Defense on their album Once Around. His debut solo album, Petits Artéfacts, deemed "a bold solo debut from one of the most notable artists in contemporary music today" by PopMatters, was released on the New Amsterdam label in 2017. The album features first recordings of the most acclaimed names in new music (David Lang, Bryce Dessner, David T. Little, Andrew Norman) as well as a younger generation of groundbreaking composers (Pascal Le Boeuf, Molly Joyce, Florent Ghys, Angelica Negrón).

During Photinos' 24-year tenure as the founding cellist and co-Artistic Director of the contemporary music sextet known as Eighth Blackbird, he performed over 1,000 concerts and premiered hundreds of new works, including Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet and works by Andy Akiho, Michael Gordon, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Lang, David T. Little, Nico Muhly, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Julia Wolfe and Pamela Z, among many others. Eighth Blackbird held multi-year residency positions at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Chicago and at the University of Richmond.

Prior to his new CCM faculty appointment, Photinos previously served on the faculties of the Longy School of Music of Bard College, the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. He is faculty at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and performs in the Grossman Ensemble at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.