11 Questions with Colin Jacobsen

Colin Jacobsen Headshot by Erin Baiano.jpg

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on Long Island, in the town of Great Neck, NY.

How would you describe the music that you typically create/perform?

My brother Eric and I come from a musical family: our father Edmund Jacobsen was Associate Concertmaster for many years at the Metropolitan Opera and our mom was a freelance flutist and teacher. The thing they loved doing almost more than anything in their professional lives was inviting friends and colleagues over for chamber music reading sessions that would extend through the night. We were allowed to stay up late as little kids if we were reasonably well behaved and listened to the music. So from an early age, we saw music as a joyful, communal event and wanted to participate as soon as we could.

Impossible Burger, beyond burger, regular burger, or turkey burger?  

Veggie (bean) burger or regular burger. If I want it to be vegetable, I want it to taste like a vegetable, not meat.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

  • Louise Behrend, my teacher for over 10 years while growing up, who taught me to hear and imagine a sound in your head before putting bow to the string.

  • Vera Beths and her husband Anner Bylsma, who taught me to play "with less ambition"; that the violin bow is a magic wand with endless expressive capabilities and to "play like you are the listener".

  • Yo-Yo Ma, who taught me that the room or concert hall you find yourself in is another instrument that you "play" and to look at things always from the biggest possible perspective as well as drilling down into the details.

  • Kayhan Kalhor, who weaves intricate stories through his instrument (the Persian kamancheh) that link the ancient world to the present moment.

  • Composers and friends like Caroline Shaw and Gabriel Kahane, whose music also speaks to the present moment and creates its own time-space.

  • My father Edmund Jacobsen, whose musical opinions are as strong as his generosity.

  • My brother and lifelong musical partner, Eric Jacobsen, whose passion and drive to bring people together through music continually inspires me (and who still let's me beat him in ping pong)

  • My colleagues in The Knights, my string quartet Brooklyn Rider and in Silkroad who have always shown me a new way to hear and think about music.

As a co-founder of The Knights, what has been the most rewarding experience with the group?

In such a divided, polarized world, it's so fulfilling that The Knights can come together, work on challenging music, ask difficult questions of each other and the music and come up with a shared vision. Eric always talks about a sense of "no mistakes", just pure enjoyment that we have at a chamber music reading party like the ones we grew up around, and then hosted ourselves. Through a disciplined, intense rehearsal process, you go through a dark valley (with a sense of humor), and hope to come out on the other side, where the presence of the audience makes the moment alive/urgent and once again there are "no mistakes", just direct communication. It's a lofty goal, but when it all comes together, magic happens and memories are created for the musician and the audience. I can see/hear in my mind many of those moments: at a sweaty Brooklyn venue that (doesn't exist any more) in The Knights' early days; at the Musikverein in Vienna and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; taking over a bar on a tour off-night in Lafayette, Indiana; in a "trifecta" with Dawn Upshaw, Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman at Ravinia; and returning to the stage this summer after much silence, at Tanglewood, Caramoor and Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell to such a warm welcome back.

What inspired you to record a holiday album?

There are a number of Knights members whose lives touch several different musical worlds and whose creativity comes out in many different forms. Violinist, singer/songwriter, producer, composer, arranger Christina Courtin certainly is representative. Making a holiday album is something she's wanted to do with The Knights for a number of years, and we thought now was a good time to put something out into the world full of comfort and hope without dismissing the difficulties people have gone through the last couple of years. Christina really led the charge in putting together the brilliant and diverse set of collaborators; the set list which has some holiday chestnuts alongside some lesser known numbers; and the editing and mixing of the album. This is an album that speaks to the holidays not as one-dimensional kitsch designed to sell you as much as possible, but as the time when we feel complex emotions surrounding the passage of time, the coming together of families, the realization of who is present or not able to be that particular year (or ever again),  joy, alienation, coziness, in short- all the feels…

You arranged “Haneros Haluli” and are the soloist. What inspired you to arrange this and add it to the album?

I knew I wanted to contribute something for Hanukkah, and started by going on a dive into early klezmer recorded history. I stumbled across a violinist named H. Stainer from Poland who recorded Haneros Haluli (These Lights- based on a Hanukkah chant) pre-World War I. Upon hearing it I felt like I was hit by a ton of bricks from the beauty of this improvisatory melody and the melancholic dance that followed it. There are many songs that go by the name Haneros Haluli, (or Hanerot Halalu), but I couldn't find a vocal version that corresponded to Stainer's version. However, his playing had such a spoken quality to it that went straight to my heart, and made me think of the central message of Hanukkah as I understand it: of the miracle of light shining through darkness and being shared with people worldwide. In arranging it for The Knights, I wanted to heighten the communal aspect (Stainer's version is just violin and cimbalom), particularly in the dance section where I imagined a procession lighting the way from the strange times we're in now to an unknown future.

What‘s your favorite part of The Knight’s new album, “The Knights Before Christmas”?

Ugh, so hard to say, as part of what I love is the diversity of songs, collaborators, arrangements that make up The Knights Before Christmas. In this moment, I'll say it's Christina Courtin's lush string arrangement of Prince's one and rarely heard Christmas song, Another Lonely Christmas sung with so much soul by Krystle Warren. 

What’s the next thing for you & for The Knights?  

We have started a residency at 92Y in NY, which has such a beautiful acoustic space, the Kaufmann Concert Hall, and serves such a wide community/does such a wide variety of cultural programming for the city. In early 2022, we are recording and touring with the brilliant pianist Aaron Diehl, including Mary Lou Williams' Zodiac Suite, a long overlooked brilliant piece for jazz trio and chamber orchestra. 

If you could have dinner with any 3 musicians living or dead who would the be ( why? ) 

Franz Schubert, Stevie Wonder, and Rumi (we only have his words, so we have to imagine his music)? Three poet/musicians who speak to birth, death, life, love, everything in between and beyond through their words and music.