THE EZRA DUO

American violist Jacob Clewell stands in the vanguard of musicians of his generation. Gold Medalist of the 2017 Vancouver International Music Competition, standout moments from recent activities include solo and chamber performances at the Scotia Festival, Green Lake Festival of Music, Le Domaine Forget, Lake District Summer Music, Northern Lights Festival de Febrero in Ajijic, Mexico, and Festival Pablo Casals Prades in Prades, France. He has appeared alongside members of the Escher, Emerson, Endellion, Cypress, and Penderecki quartets, Berlin Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, Manhattan Chamber Players, Gryphon Trio, Pedja Muzijevic, Andrew Armstrong, and Benjamin Bowman. In May 2018 he gave his first performance in Chicago's Symphony Center, performing on the VIMC winner's tour with virtuosic solo works by Henri Vieuxtemps. In his home base of Toronto, he has appeared in the contemporary music festival 21C, and has recorded Brahms' 2 Gesänge for the Canadian Broadcasting Company with Wallis Giunta and Steven Philcox. Jacob also collaborates with painter Karen Mosbacher on Paint:Music, a project focusing on the audio/visual manifestations of synesthesia. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jacob spent the majority of his childhood in Oklahoma, playing viola in school and local orchestras. He holds diplomas from the Cornish College of the Arts, Stony Brook University, and The Glenn Gould School, where he studied with Mara Gearman, Nicholas Cords, Lawrence Dutton, Steven Dann, and Masumi Per Rostad, and spent two years of intensive study under the Emerson String Quartet. He has undertaken additional study in Europe with Yuko Inoue, Roger Chase, and Nobuko Imai. Jacob holds the Yo-Yo Ma Fellowship for Strings at the University of Toronto, where he is Gryphon Trio violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon's teaching assistant.