Carnegie Hall

The Knights are a collective of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music. Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they inspire listeners with vibrant programs rooted in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery. The Knights started with late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers serve as artistic directors of The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as conductor.

Proud to be known as “one of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products ... known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory” (The New Yorker), The Knights have toured extensively across the US and Europe since their founding in 2007. They are celebrated globally, appearing across the world’s most prestigious stages, including those at Tanglewood, the Ravinia Festival, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. The orchestra has collaborated with many renowned soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham.

In the 2024–2025 season at Carnegie Hall, The Knights are joined by esteemed musicians such as Aaron Diehl, Aoife O’Donovan, and Cécile McLorin Salvant. The group also continues its premieres of new works for the Rhapsody project, a multi-year commissioning initiative inspired by the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. For the orchestra’s complete schedule and a list of artistic partners and collaborative projects, visit theknightsnyc.com.

Violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen is “one of the most interesting figures on the classical music scene” (The Washington Post). Since the early 2000s, he has forged an intriguing path in the cultural landscape of our time, collaborating with an astonishingly wide range of artists across diverse traditions and disciplines while constantly looking for new ways to connect with audiences. For his work as a founding member of two innovative and influential ensembles—the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and orchestra The Knights—he was selected from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious and substantial United States Artists Fellowship. He is also active as an Avery Fisher Career Grant–winning soloist and has toured with Silkroad since its founding by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 at Tanglewood. As a composer, he has written pieces for an eclectic mix of artists including pianist Emanuel Ax, singers Anne Sofie von Otter and Jamie Barton, banjo player Béla Fleck, mandolinist Avi Avital, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, choreographers John Heginbotham and Brian Brooks, theater group Compagnia de’ Colombari and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. In the 2022–2023 season, Mr. Jacobsen assumed the position of artistic director of Santa Fe Pro Musica, an organization with which he has had a fruitful long-term association as a guest soloist and leader.

Already well established as one of classical music’s most exciting and innovative conductors, Eric Jacobsen combines fresh interpretations of the traditional canon with cutting-edge collaborations across musical genres. Hailed by The New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” Mr. Jacobsen—as both a conductor and a cellist—has built a reputation for engaging audiences with creative and collaborative programming. He is artistic director and co-founder of The Knights, the uniquely adventurous New York City–based chamber orchestra. The ensemble—founded with his brother, violinist Colin Jacobsen—grew out of late-night music reading parties with friends, good food and drink, and conversation. Current projects include a multi-year Rhapsody project as well as a residency at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Jacobsen also currently serves as music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, as he continues to pioneer both orchestras’ programming and community engagement in new and exciting directions. A frequent guest conductor, Mr. Jacobsen has established continuing relationships with the Colorado Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Bach Festival, and Dresden Musikfestspiele. Recent engagements also include concerts with the Omaha Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and Grant Park Festival.

Mr. Jacobsen brings joy, storytelling, and a touch of humor to what he describes as “musical conversations” that delight audiences around the world, including those who do not traditionally attend classical music concerts. He is married to Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, and they have a daughter.

Pianist Aaron Diehl has quietly redefined the lines between jazz and classical, and built a global career around his nuanced, understated approach to music making. Praised for his “melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint” (The New York Times) and his “traditional jazz sound with a sophisticated contemporary spin” (The Guardian), he has performed with musical giants such as Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tyshawn Sorey, and Philip Glass, and has been a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and The Cleveland Orchestra, working with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, and Alan Gilbert. In 2023, he was named the artistic director of 92NY’s Jazz in July Festival, succeeding the legendary Bill Charlap.

With an expansive, orchestral, lyrical approach to the piano that channels predecessors like Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, and Jelly Roll Morton, Mr. Diehl has headlined the Monterey, Detroit, and Newport Jazz festivals, and had residencies at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, SF Jazz, and more. He counts among his mentors towering figures such as John Lewis, Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Marcus Roberts, and Eric Reed.

In September 2023, Mr. Diehl released his Grammy-nominated recording of Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite with The Knights. The first-ever studio recording of Zodiac Suite, it has been touted as “a joyous, enchanting creation … a triumph” (The Guardian) with Mr. Diehl lauded as “a contemporary champion” (The New York Times) and “a perfect choice to preside over this landmark recording” (The Wall Street Journal). The album is Mr. Diehl’s fourth recording on Mack Avenue Records, following 2020’s The Vagabond, 2015’s Space Time Continuum, and his 2013 label debut, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative.

Mr. Diehl was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he grew up listening to his grandfather, the pianist and trombonist Arthur Baskerville. In 2002, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition, where he was a finalist, he attracted the attention of Wynton Marsalis, who invited him to join his septet for a European tour. After studying at The Juilliard School under the direction of Kenny Barron, Eric Reed, and Oxana Yablonskaya, he was awarded the 2011 American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship. Mr. Diehl, who holds commercial single and multi-engine pilot certifications, inherited a lifelong love of flying from his father, who was an avid pilot. Mr. Diehl has been a Steinway Artist since 2016.