Called »a violinist who can do anything« by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Grammy-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman integrates a wide range of creative sensibilities into a style unique amongst today’s violinists. Richard Brody of The New Yorker has called Johnny Gandelsman »revelatory« in concert, placing him in the company of »radically transformative« performers like Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin and Christian Zacharias. Gandelsman is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow.
In the 2025/26 season Gandelsman premiered Johnny Loves Johann, which united him with acclaimed choreographers John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood. The collaborative project pairs Johnny’s folk-inspired violin interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete cello suites with original choreography performed by its creators.
Gandelsman’s recording of J. S. Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, which reached #1 on the Billboard Classical Chart, and made it onto NY Magazine and NY Times Best of the Year lists, was described by the Boston Globe as »...sparklingly personal Bach, shorn of grandeur, lofted by a spirit of dance, and as predictable as the flight of a swallow.« His next release, featuring Bach’s complete Cello Suites, transcribed for violin was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike. His interpretation was described by The New York Times as »radically weightless, at times seemingly improvisatory, and completely grounded in dance.«
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires in California raged and America reckoned with entrenched systemic racism, police brutality and a deeply polarized presidential election, Johnny Gandelsman created the project This is America as a form of creative documentation and response to a time of disruption and disconnection. Working with twenty presenters across the country, he invited twenty-two US-based composers to reflect on the time they were living in. The resulting anthology was called »profound and engaging« (NPR Music), »A new vision for classical music« (Pitchfork) and “potentially one of the important recordings of our time” (Gramophone). Now expanded to include 28 works, Gandelsman has performed This is America throughout North America, including year-long residencies with the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College during the 2023/24 season and with Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina during the 2024/25 season.
A passionate advocate for new music, Gandelsman has premiered over 80 new compositions, including the music of Clarice Assad, Kinan Azmeh, Christina Courtin, Rhiannon Giddens, Osvaldo Golijov, Gonzalo Grau, Colin Jacobsen, Gabriel Kahane, Justin Messina, Matana Roberts, Caroline Shaw, and Du Yun.
As a founding member of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, Johnny Gandelsman has closely worked with such luminaries as Bela Fleck, Martin Hayes, Kayhan Kalhor, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark Morris, Anne Sofie von Otter, Abigail Washburn and Damian Woetzel.
He has been producing records since starting his label, In a Circle Records in 2008. In addition to his 3 solo albums, recent credits include Sarah Botstein’s PBS documentary films The American Revolution, and The U.S. and the Holocaust. With Brooklyn Rider he recorded Grammy-nominated Healing Modes, and with Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma Sing Me Home, a Grammy-award winner for Best World Music Album, co-produced by Gandelsman and legendary producer Kevin Killen (U2, Elvis Costello).
Johnny Gandelsman was born in Moscow in 1978, and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1990. He’s lived in New York since 1999.
