Project Description
Cellist Caleb van der Swaagh is a current member of Ensemble ACJW – a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. He is the recipient of the 2010 Tanglewood Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Prize and the Manhattan School of Music Pablo Casals Award, and was also a grant recipient from the Virtu Foundation. An advocate of contemporary music, Caleb has worked with such composers as Alvin Lucier, David Lang, Steve Reich, and Philippe Manoury, and has premiered many works by composers of his own generation. He also performs his own arrangements and transcriptions of compositions that range from Renaissance viola da gamba music to jazz. A native New Yorker, Caleb graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University as part of the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange program with a degree in Classics, as well as Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Caleb received his master’s degree with academic honors from New England Conservatory and later studied at the Manhattan School of Music. His primary teachers are Bonnie Hampton, Bernard Greenhouse, Laurence Lesser, and David Geber.