Nicholas Canellakis

A sought-after and multifaceted artist, Nicholas Canellakis has forged a unique voice combining his talents as soloist, chamber musician, curator, filmmaker, and composer/arranger.

Recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, the New Haven Symphony as artist-in-residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. He performs recitals throughout the United States with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, and recent appearances have included Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Four Arts in Palm Beach, New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Wolf Trap near Washington D.C.

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, including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center in Korea, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls. He is also a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Moab, Chamberfest Cleveland, and Music in the Vineyards. He was recently 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.

Mr. Canellakis’ latest album (b)romance, featuring some of his original compositions and arrangements, was released by First Hand Records in 2023 and has received over one million streams on Apple Music.

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 films Thin Walls and My New Cello were nominated for awards at many prominent film festivals and are currently available to stream online.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (’06) 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.

Mr. Canellakis plays an outstanding cello by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, from 1840. He joined the Curtis Institute of Music faculty in 2024.