Violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen is “one of the most interesting figures on the classical music scene” (Washington Post). Since the early 2000’s, Jacobsen has forged an intriguing path in the cultural landscape of our time, collaborating with an astonishingly wide range of artists across diverse traditions and disciplines while constantly looking for news to connect with audiences. For his work as a founding member of two game-changing, audience-expanding ensembles – the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and orchestra The Knights – Jacobsen was selected from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious and substantial United States Artists Fellowship. He is also active as an Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning soloist and has toured with Silkroad since its founding by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 at Tanglewood. Starting in the 2022/23 season, Jacobsen assumes the position of Artistic Director of Santa Fe Pro Musica, an organization with which he has had a fruitful long term association as a guest soloist and leader.

Hailed as “one of the wonders of contemporary music” (Los Angeles Times), the string quartet Brooklyn Rider finds equal inspiration in musical languages ranging from late Beethoven to Persian classical music to American roots music to the endlessly varied voices of living composers. Together its members have presented a wealth of world premieres and toured extensively across North America, Asia and Europe, in venues ranging from clubs and rock festivals to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. The group’s artistic partnerships span the musical spectrum from Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov to John Zorn, and from Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter to banjo legend Béla Fleck, Mexican jazz singer Magos Herrera and Irish fiddler Martin Hayes. Brooklyn Rider’s recordings Passport, Dominant Curve and Seven Steps all made NPR’s best-of-the-year lists; the group’s Silent City, its collaboration with Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, was named one of Rhapsody’s Best World Music Albums of the Decade; and with Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass, the four musicians proved themselves “stunning interpreters” (Time Out Chicago) of the composer’s music Recent releases include the Grammy®-nominated Healing Modes, an ode to the healing power of music, centered around 5 new commissions alongside Beethoven’s epic Opus 132 string quartet. Described by The New Yorker as a project which “…could not possibly be more relevant or necessary than it is currently,” the composers include Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Matana Roberts, Caroline Shaw, and Du Yun.

It was to foster the intimacy and camaraderie of chamber music on the orchestral stage that Jacobsen and his brother, conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen, founded The Knights. As the New Yorker reports, “few ensembles are as adept at mixing old music with new as the dynamic young Brooklyn orchestra.” The “consistently inventive, infectiously engaged indie ensemble” (New York Times) has appeared at New York venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the 92nd Street Y to Central Park, site-specific pieces in NY’s subway system, storied concert halls worldwide including the Dresden Musikfestspiele, Cologne Philharmonie, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the Elbphilharmonie and Vienna’s Musikverein. The orchestra has an extensive discography including two Grammy®-nominated collaborations with frequent collaborator Gil Shaham; the world premiere recording of Osvaldo Golijov’s cello concerto Azul with cellist Yo-Yo Ma; an all-Beethoven album with Jacobsen as soloist with German cellist Jan Vogler and Finnish pianist Antti Siirala in the Triple Concerto; and the recently released Kreutzer Project, in which Jacobsen contributes an original piece Kreutzings as well as a new arrangement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for violin and orchestra. The group’s origins are explored in We Are The Knights, a documentary film produced by Thirteen/WNET and hosted by Paula Zahn. In recent years, The Knights have collaborated with a host of path-breaking artists, including South African visual artist and director William Kentridge in his acclaimed Head and the Load, choreographer Pam Tanowitz, actress Kathleen Chalfant and visual artist Brice Marden in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets; and stage director Alison Moritz alongside choreographer John Heginbotham in a fully-staged version of Candide, created for the centenary celebrations of Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood.

Colin Jacobsen’s work as a composer is a reflection of his deep curiosity about the world around him and a desire to find unexpected connections between seemingly disparate elements. Jointly inspired by encounters with leading exponents of non-Western traditions and by his own classical heritage, his writing reveals an eclectic personal voice with a “knack for spinning lines with an elasticity that sounds uncannily like improvisation” (New York Times). Recent commissions include Head,Heart, written and premiered at Tanglewood for mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton alongside pianist Emanuel Ax and cellist Yo-Yo Ma with text by Lydia Davis; Time and Again for Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital and Brooklyn Rider; Starlighter for Syrian-born clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and Brooklyn Rider; and For Sixty Cents, premiered and recorded by Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter. Jacobsen collaborated with Iran’s Siamak Aghaei to write a Persian folk-inflected composition, Ascending Bird, which he performed as soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, in a concert that was streamed live by millions of viewers worldwide. His work for dance and theater includes music for Compagnia de’ Colombari’s theatrical production of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, Arjuna’s Revelation for Bharatanatyam dancer Aparna Ramaswamy and the Silkroad Ensemble; and Chalk and Soot, an evening length work created with choreographer John Heginbotham and presented by Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, based on Kandinsky’s proto-Dada text, Sounds.

As a touring member of Yo-Yo Ma’s venerated Silk Road Project since its founding in 2000, Jacobsen has participated in residencies and performances at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hollywood Bowl, and across the U.S., as well as in Azerbaijan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and Switzerland. Highlights of his journeys with the ensemble include performances in front of the world’s largest wooden Buddha statue in Nara, Japan; as part of Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary celebrations; at the opening of the Shanghai Special Olympics; and at the Red Fort in Agra, India. He appears as both performer and composer/arranger on numerous Silkroad Ensemble albums. Jacobsen’s piece, Atashgah, featuring Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor can be heard on the feature length documentary about Silkroad by Oscar®-winning director Morgan Neville as well as on the album, A Playlist Without Borders.

As a violin soloist, Jacobsen was “born to the instrument and its sweet, lyrical possibilities” (New York Times). He has been featured with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Austin Symphony, the Orlando Philharmonic, The Knights, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and has premiered concertos by Kevin Beavers and Lisa Bielawa. Recent highlights include a performance of Brahms’ Double Concerto with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and The Knights with his brother Eric as conductor for the opening of the 2022 Caramoor Music Festival. Jacobsen also performed his Kreutzer Concerto with The Knights on tour this summer at the Ravinia Festival, Clark Art Institute, and at Baltimore’s Candlelight Concert Series. In the midst of the global pandemic, he embarked on an ongoing recording and video project with choreographer John Heginbotham of Paganini’s 24 Caprices that saw its first release on WNET’s All Arts channel in August of 2022. He has been a soloist in China with composer Tan Dun performing his Water Passion and recorded Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale with Roger Waters (formerly of Pink Floyd) as narrator.

A graduate of the Juilliard School and the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, Jacobsen's principal teachers have included Doris Rothenberg, Louise Behrend, Robert Mann and Vera Beths.

Colin Jacobsen plays a Joseph Guarneri filius Andreae violin dating back from 1696 and a Samuel Zygmuntowicz violin made in 2008.