Biography
Combining a dynamic and expressive style with intelligence and sensitivity, cellist Jacques Lee Wood is gaining attention as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician of the highest caliber. A versatile artist, Wood’s interest in teaching, and research supplements an active performance career that covers a broad range of repertoire and interests: from historically informed performance of the Baroque, Classic, and Romantic periods to newly composed works.
From a musical family of Korean and European heritage, he began his music studies from a young age – first on the violin, then on the cello. At the age of eleven, just two years after he began studying the cello, he gave his first concerto appearance. Since then, Mr. Wood has traveled the world performing solo, recital, and chamber music concerts, often collaborating with some of the world’s finest musicians. Most recently, Mr. Wood performed the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Seoul National Symphony Orchestra in Korea and Schumann Cello Concerto with the Ureuk Symphony at Merkin Hall in New York City. Other recent, noteworthy performances include a Carnegie Hall recital with the Yale Baroque Ensemble, the Asian premiere of American composer Russell Peck’s Voice of the Wood with the Pohang Symphony Orchestra, a Tokyo debut recital at Sonorium Hall, and lecture-recitals at Yale University, Auburn University, and the University of Connecticut that discuss issues of historical performance practice in the Beethoven cello sonatas.
Mr. Wood has received top prizes at the ARTS Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and has been the recipient of many awards including, most recently, a research grant from the Yale Council for East Asian Studies. Other awards include the Aldo Parisot Prize (given to an outstanding young cellist who shows promise for a solo career), the George W. Miles Fellowship, the Francis Kellogg Scholarship, and the Luther Noss Scholarship, to name a few.
He has collaborated and worked with many distinguished musicians such as Masaaki Suzuki, Jaap Schröder, Peter Frankl, Peter Salaff, Terry King, and members of the Juilliard, Vermeer, Tokyo, Rasumofsky and Keller String Quartets. He is a frequent participant in the Banff Centre Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the International Musical Arts Institute, Seoul National Symphony Orchestra Summer Festival and Institute, and the Korea Philharmonic Summer Research Institute. Mr. Wood is a principal player with Bachsolisten Seoul and the American Baroque Orchestra, and performs regularly with the Sebastian Chamber Players and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra in New York. Wood is the founder and director of the recently formed group CONTINEO, a group comprised of a new generation of artists who perform in both period and modern styles.
Mr. Wood has held teaching positions at Yale University Department of Music, Yale School of Music, and Atlantic Union College. In 2010, Wood was a Visiting Fellow in Early Music at the Yale School of Music, where he worked with renowned baroque violinist and early music specialist Robert Mealy. He has also held teaching residencies at Central Connecticut State University and Ulsan University in Korea. Wood currently serves on the faculty at the Korea Philharmonic Summer Research Institute, the Seoul National Orchestral Summer Festival and Institute, and the Korea-Japan Summer Music Festival.
Mr. Wood is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Yale University. He received his Bachelor of Music at the New England Conservatory of Music under Laurence Lesser and his Master of Music at Yale University under Aldo Parisot. Mr. Wood is an artist with the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation.
