BIO

Hailed by the New York Times for his "muscularity and shimmering lyricism", "insightful musicianship", and "sumptuous elegance”, cellist Andrew Janss' performances have been enjoyed across five continents in venues including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Sydney Opera House, and the Louvre.

Mr. Janss has collaborated in concert and recording with a long list of iconic classical artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, Leon Fleisher, and  Richard Goode, as well as chart-topping performers such as Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Lana Del Rey, Mary J. Blige, Florence + the Machine, Erykah Badu, and The Roots.

In March 2020, while Executive Director of the non-profit organization Project: Music Heals Us, he worked with Dr. Rachel Easterwood of New York Presbyterian hospital to launch a live, 1-on-1 virtual bedside program, which ultimately provided relief and comfort for over 15,000 isolated hospital patients in 46 healthcare facilities around the country. While at PMHU, Janss also lead the organization’s music composition program for incarcerated individuals: conceiving, directing, recording, and engineering their groundbreaking Music For The Future course, which was piloted for students by the Bard Prison Initiative in Fall 2022. In Spring 2023, to further these endeavors, he launched the Amplify Foundation, an arts and technology nonprofit organization which aims to expand and deepen the healing impact of human connection through the arts.

For his arts service accomplishments, Mr. Janss was nominated for a 2020-21 Emerson Collective Fellowship by his childhood (and current) idol Yo-Yo Ma.

Early in his musical career, Mr. Janss was the founding cellist of the Escher Quartet, with whom he was in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as part of Chamber Music Society Two from 2007-10. From there, he went on to be a cellist at the Marlboro Music Festival from 2010-12. He has served as Guest Principal Cellist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has toured extensively with the Mark Morris Dance Group throughout the US, China, Italy, and Australia.

Andrew also tours and records for the groundbreaking cello rock band Break of Reality, both in the United States and as cultural ambassadors for the US Department of State. Recent tours through American Music Abroad have taken the band to Eastern and Central Asia, Haiti, and Brazil, collaborating with local musicians and composers in each country they visit.

Mr. Janss attended the Manhattan School of Music, and was awarded an Artist Diploma in 2012. His major teachers include Andrew Cook, David Geber, Clive Greensmith, and David Soyer.

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