Andrew Janss, cello
Hailed by the New York Times for his "glowing tone", "insightful musicianship", and "sumptuous elegance”, and by the Washington Post for his “amber tone”, cellist Andrew Janss' performances have taken him across four continents, to some of the most prestigious venues in the world, including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the Louvre.
At only 26 years of age, Mr. Janss has already had the opportunity to collaborate in concert with a long list of the world's greatest artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Kim Kashkashian, Paul Neubauer, Lynn Harrell, Gary Hoffman, Leon Fleisher, Wu Han, Jeffrey Kahane, David Shifrin, Pepe Romero, and members of the American, Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, Shanghai, and Takacs String Quartets.
As a soloist, Mr. Janss has been presented in recent years by the New West Symphony, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Astoria Symphony Orchestra, the New England Symphonic Ensemble, the New Amsterdam Orchestra, and the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic. In the 2011-12 season, Andrew will be reengaged by the New West Symphony, the Astoria Symphony, and the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic, and make his debut with the Round Rock Symphony in Austin, TX.
In Fall 2010, Mr. Janss was named to the roster of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Music Ensemble. Performances this season with the company include premieres of new choreography in Boston, Chicago, New York, Princeton, and Virginia to the music of Villa-Lobos, Beethoven, and Hummel.
This past summer, Mr. Janss was invited to attend the Marlboro Music Festival, where he gave concerts with Arnold Steinhardt, Cynthia Raim, Geraldine Walther, Lucy Chapman, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Prior to his arrival at Marlboro, he served as a teaching artist at Pinchas Zukerman’s music festival at the National Arts Centre of Canada. Soon after, Mr. Janss was selected from over 250 applicants to compete at the Beijing International Music Competition.
From 2005-10, Mr. Janss was the founding cellist of the Escher Quartet, one of the most highly acclaimed string quartets of its generation. The Escher Quartet was in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as part of Chamber Music Society Two from 2007-10. During his tenure, the quartet gave debuts at the Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Santa Fe, La Jolla Summerfest, Caramoor, and Gold Coast chamber music festivals.
Andrew is respected nationally as a teacher and coach. In addition to the National Arts Center Summer Music Institute, Mr. Janss has given masterclasses at Tulane University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Idaho. During the 2007-08 academic school year, Mr. Janss held the position of Visiting Lecturer in Residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, working closely with the famed resident Emerson String Quartet. He is the youngest faculty member in the history of the School of Music.
In 2011 Mr. Janss was called in to consult for Christopher Walken on his role in the independent film "A Late Quartet", in which Mr. Walken portrays a quartet cellist fighting the onset of Parkinson's Disease. He was also asked to advise Walken's castmates Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener in the development of the quartet's rehearsal technique.
Mr. Janss has recorded for Albany Records, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Studio Recordings, WNYC’s Soundcheck, New York’s WQXR, and Minnesota Public Radio. Additionally, he has been heard on Los Angeles’s KUSC, Chicago’s WFMT, and numerous other radio stations across the United States.
Andrew Janss began his training on the cello at age ten with cellist Andrew Cook, and continued at the Manhattan School of Music, studying cello with David Geber, and chamber music with Sylvia Rosenberg and David Soyer, founding cellist of the Guarneri Quartet. He graduated in May 2006 with the Hugo Kortschak commencement award for outstanding achievement in chamber music.