Keiran Campbell was drawn to the cello after he stumbled across one in his grandmother’s basement and was baffled by its size. Once he turned 8 he began taking lessons—on a much smaller cello—in his native Greensboro, North Carolina. After studying extensively with Leonid Zilper, former solo cellist of the Bolshoi Ballet, he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Juilliard School, working with Darrett Adkins, Timothy Eddy, and Phoebe Carrai. Keiran also spent several springs in Cornwall, England, studying with Steven Isserlis and Ralph Kirshbaum at Prussia Cove.
Keiran has performed with ensembles including The English Concert, NYBI, Philharmonia Baroque, The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Four Nations Ensemble, The Toronto Symphony, Arion, and Twelfth Night. A sought-after principal cellist, he has been invited as guest principal with Les Violons du Roy, Le Concert des Nations, The English Concert, Utopia Orchestra at the Salzburger Festspiele, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, and Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Keiran can be heard on a recently released CD of Beethoven Cello Sonatas op, 5 with his duo partner, fortepianist Sezi Seskir, as well as the 2019 recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies with Le Concert des Nations conducted by Jordi Savall. During his summers, Keiran has performed at Teatro Nuovo, Lakes Area Music Festival, the Salzburger Festspiele, the BBC Proms and The Edinburgh festival with The English Concert, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and The Carmel Bach Festival. He is on faculty at Chamber Music Collective, which focuses primarily on post-1750 performance practice.
Keiran also studies violin making with Timothy Johnson and now splits his time between practising the cello and filling every corner of his apartment with wood chips. He performs on both a modern instrument by Johnson and an anonymous 18th-century Northern Italian cello known as the “ex-Ormandy.”
Photo credit: Dahlia Katz