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 together 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. Their roster boasts musicians of remarkably diverse talents—including composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers—who bring a range of musical influences to the group, from jazz to indie rock music. They are celebrated globally, appearing on the world’s most prestigious stages, including those at Tanglewood, the Ravinia Festival, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. The orchestra has collaborated with many renowned soloists who include Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham.

In 2025–2026, The Knights’ season at Carnegie Hall will blend timeless tradition with bold innovation in the orchestra’s signature style. Additionally, The Knights’ Rhapsody project, a multi-year commissioning initiative inspired by the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, continues through 2027. For the latest on the orchestra’s season and a complete 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 who include 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.

Michael P. Atkinson is associate conductor, horn player, and trustee emeritus of The Knights. He has appeared on the podium with ensembles and at venues that include BalletCollective in a concert featuring five world-premiere works, Chamber Music Center of New York in a side-by-side concert with students, Naumburg Bandshell, and Tanglewood. He has also appeared as guest conductor of the New York City Ballet and Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and as the regular conductor for Works & Process at the Guggenheim for the annual presentation of Peter and the Wolf and Third Bird featuring Isaac Mizrahi, Ensemble Connect, and Dance Heginbotham. A distinguished composer, arranger, orchestrator, and instrumentalist, Mr. Atkinson has collaborated with artists and organizations that include Sufjan Stevens, Justin Peck, William Kentridge, the New York Philharmonic, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Swedish Opera, La Monnaie / De Munt, Netherlands Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Craig Taborn, and Jakob Brø.

With composer Mikael Karlsson, Mr. Atkinson co-composed a new score for the ballet Coppélia—choreographed and directed by Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple for Scottish Ballet—which premiered to wide critical acclaim at the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival. Coppélia subsequently premiered in London at Sadler’s Wells in March 2023 and will tour with Scottish Ballet to Turkey in the fall of 2025. Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Karlsson have recently finished the evening-length ballet Mary, Queen of Scots for Scottish Ballet in collaboration with choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas. It will premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2025. Mr. Atkinson has been commissioned by The Knights as part of the Rhapsody project. The new work is slated to premiere in the 2026–2027 season.

At home in repertoire from early music to new commissions, coloratura soprano Kathryn Mueller is praised for her “crystalline soaring soprano.” She has sung with ensembles that include the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Mozart’s Mass in C Minor), the chamber orchestra ROCO (Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915), Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra (Reena Esmail’s The History of Red), Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9), Tucson Symphony Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah), Spartanburg Philharmonic (Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano), American Bach Soloists, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and the Baltimore, Charlotte, and Memphis symphony orchestras. An advocate for new music, Ms. Mueller co-commissioned Reena Esmail’s The History of Red with The Knights, Santa Fe Pro Musica, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. She also gave the world premiere of Ananda Sukarlan’s song cycle Love and Variations, commissioned for her vocal-piano ensemble Swara Sonora Trio.

Ms. Mueller turned to her musical roots in the Baroque period for her debut solo album, Love & Loss: Songs of Purcell, Bach, and Handel. Released in 2020, it was praised by Early Music America for its “sheer beauty,” “deliberate restraint,” and “concern for the text.” She has also recorded Grammy-nominated albums with Seraphic Fire and True Concord and is featured as a soloist on recordings by New Trinity Baroque, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Tucson Chamber Artists, and Seraphic Fire. She received an Adams Fellowship at the Carmel Bach Festival, and was a finalist in the Oratorio Society of New York’s Solo Competition and (with her soprano duo Les Sirènes) Early Music America’s Baroque Performance Competition.

Ms. Mueller studied voice as an undergraduate at Brown University and earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Arizona. She is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, NCSU choral director Nathan Leaf, and two lively young children. She belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of musicians who donate a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. She supports the Poor People’s Campaign through her performances.