Nicolas Kendall
Nicolas (Nick) Kendall
As his multifaceted international career unfolds, Grammy and Emmy Awards winning violinist Nick Kendall reimagines and reinvents how a traditional violin virtuoso can transform the music world without boundaries.
Nick is a founding member of the internationally acclaimed, genre-busting string band Time for Three (TF3) – in addition to his solo concert career. In all his endeavors, he is a restless innovator in shaping how modern audiences perceive, appreciate, and enjoy music and music-making. He co-founded and plays in the artist-driven East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), and, in 2020, he became Artist in Residence at New York’s Lincoln Center, where he unveiled his Residency event series in summer 2021. Since then he presented more than twenty artists in his Residency events on the iconic Lincoln Center’s Plaza, Center’s Jaffe Drive, and the three-story high glass Atrium of Alice Tully Hall. In fall 2022, Nick joined Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields for their South American tour as the Orchestra’s guest leader.
In his career as a soloist and with TF3 and ECCO, Nick has performed at Carnegie Hall, new David Geffen Hall and many venues across the Lincoln Center campus in New York City, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Schleswig Holstein Festival outside Hamburg, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Davies Hall in San Francisco, BBC Proms in London, Ravinia Festival, Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, Wiener Musikverein, Marlboro Music Festival, Sydney Opera House, Hyogo Performing Arts Center outside Osaka, Dvořák Hall at Prague’s Rudolfinum, Hong Kong Cultural Center, and an array of sports arenas across Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Luxembourg as one of the featured artists on the touring super-show “Night of the Proms”.
He has shared the stage with Joshua Bell, Branford Marsalis, Christoph Eschenbach, Joshua Radin, Keith Lockhart, Alisa Weilerstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jake Shimabukuro, Aoife O'Donovan, Marin Alsop, Chris Thile, Xian Zhang, James Gaffigan, Krzysztof Urbański, Chris Brubeck – who composed a jazz-inspired improvised violin concerto for Nick, Swiss pop/soul star Stefanie Heinzmann, the legendary Scottish rock band Simple Minds, the Late Show Band leader Louis Cato and singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder. In 2023, Nick and TF3 appeared in a new entertainment format event JammJamalongside Recording Academy nominees Big Freedia, Tank and the Bangas, Cimafunk, and Ibrahim Maalouf.
In 2021, Nick and TF3 wrote and performed the musical score – working virtually, during the Covid-19 pandemic with longtime friend and fellow collaborator, singer songwriter Ben Sollee – for the soundtrack of “Land”, actress Robin Wright’s feature film debut as a director. Produced by Big Beach, and distributed through Focus Features, “Land” premiered at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.
Emblematic of Nick’s diverse artistic expressions are special projects that include – in addition to original film scoring and recording new music by living composers – co-writing, producing, and performing on pop albums. Besides co-composing the “Land” soundtrack and releasing the Grammy winning recording “Letters for the Future” (Deutsche Grammophon, TF3 and the Philadelphia Orchestra presenting new commissions by Jennifer Hidgon and Kevin Puts), Nick also performs on the latest release of R&B superstar Summer Walker's hit record “Still Over It” (Interscope, 2021).
Nick’s love for music, which began when he first picked up a violin at the age of three, is rooted in the family tradition: his grandfather – the renowned violin pedagogue John Kendall – brought the Suzuki method from Japan to the United States in the 1960s. Nick began his music education as a Suzuki kid and mastered his professional skills and musicianship at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.
Nick's commitment to his art and craft, as a communicator and caretaker, goes beyond his work as an active performing artist. Designed to inspire young people to revel in the exhilaration of music making, his programming for young people renews the teaching tradition of his grandfather while tapping the source of joy he himself discovered in his earliest experiences as a musician. Nick has brought his kids’ concerts “Listen up: Music is a Language!” to various communities throughout the United States, including the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony’s 2013-14 season of Young People's Concerts at the Kennedy Center, and Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2022-23 season of School Concerts at Verizon Hall.