An evening with Grammy Award-Winner Mike BLOCK, Voice and Cello,
features an eclectic mix of original compositions, songs, arrangements
of traditional folk music, and classical selections that draw
inspiration from his diverse collaborations with artists such as
cellist Yo-Yo Ma, fiddler Mark OConnor, Indian tabla player Sandeep
Das, and pop stars such as will.i.am, Stevie Wonder, and Bon Iver.
https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=1&v=7yv6TapwI_I
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=7yv6TapwI_I] BIO Mike
Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator,
hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the "ideal musician of the 21st-Century."
Passionate about cross-cultural collaboration through music, Mike is
committed to inspiring individuals and connecting communities. At home
in a wide range of musical styles, through a multi-genre approach to
composition, performance and education, he seeks to inspire audiences
and empower musicians to find joy in the full world of music. Mike is
member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble (SRE), having joined in 2005
while a student at The Juilliard School. Touring extensively
throughout the world with SRE, he has been featured as cello and vocal
soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a
Grammy Award in 2017 for their album, Sing Me Home. Mike also served
as Music Director for SREs acclaimed opening concert of New York
City's Central Park SummerStage 2011 season "Night at the
Caravanserai: Tales of Wonder". As an innovator, Mike is among the
first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move
while playing. Employing his patented design, The Block Strap, Mike
was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall. The NY
Times characterized the performance as, "Breathless ... Half dance,
half dare." As an educator, Mike is passionate about creativity and
collaboration. In 2010 he founded the Mike Block String Camp (MBSC) as
a way to provide players of all backgrounds the opportunity to learn
from a world-class faculty in a variety of styles, supporting the
exploration and development of the artistic voice of each student.
Mike is also the founding Director of Silkroads Global Musician
Workshop (GMW), designed to foster a community of globally minded
musicians. He teaches online through his Multi-Style Cello School at
ArtistWorks.com, with an extensive library of instructional and
performance videos, and authored the book Contemporary Cello Etudes,
published by Berklee Press. Acclaimed by the NY Times for his "vital
rich-hued solo playing," Block's solo performances offer a rich
mixture of core classical repertoire with original compositions. He
has collaborated in performance and recordings with a variety of
diverse musicians, including Will.i.am, Edgar Meyer, Stevie Wonder,
The New York Philharmonic, Bon Iver, Zakir Hussain, Rachel Barton
Pine, Allison Krauss, Mark O'Connor, Rhiannon Giddens, Bobby McFerrin,
Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Julian Lage. Mike is an active
recording artist of original material, folk music and cross-cultural
collaborations. He has an ongoing project to record all of the Bach
cello suites in acoustically glorious bathrooms of famous concert
halls, BachInTheBathroom.com. In 2017, Block became an ongoing
contributor to Facebooks Sound Collection, for which he has composed,
arranged, recorded, and produced over 300 tracks ranging from Western
Classical to contemporary pop, as well as traditional music from Asia,
Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. During his time living in
New York City, Mike regularly subbed on Broadway as on-stage cellist
for the Pulitzer Prize winning musical, Next to Normal, and he also
worked as Music Consultant on the 2012 film, A Late Quartet. Mike was
the subject of a 2011 feature article in the Wall Street Journal for
his Artistic Directorship of the GALA BROOKLYN Music Festival,
featuring cross-cultural collaborations among locally-based musicians.
Mikes television and radio credits include Late Night with Conan
OBrian, Regis and Kelly, NBCs 30 Rock, NPRs St. Paul Sunday Morning,
WNYCs Soundcheck, APMs Performance Today, WNBC 4s Chuck Scarborough
Show, VH1, The Disney Channel, and the CBS Early Show. Mike attended
the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied cello with Richard
Aaron, and received the Jim Hall Prize for Undergraduate Achievement.
He earned a Masters Degree from the Juilliard School, studying with
Darrett Adkins and Joel Krosnick. Mike plays on a modern cello made in
2014 by Fabienne Gauchet, a Yamaha electric cello, DAddario strings, a
David Gage Realist pickup, and the patented cello strap of his own
design, The Block Strap. In 2012, he was appointed Associate Professor
at the Berklee College of Music, and in 2018 also joined the faculty
of New England Conservatory through the Contemporary Improvisation
program. Mike lives in Boston with his wife, fiddler Hanneke Cassel,
and their young daughter.
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16/11/2019 Last update