American Expression

Mike Block is a multi-style cello player, composer, singer, and educator, with a passion for cross-cultural collaborations. Hailed as “one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene” (Gramophone), he was acclaimed by the New York Times for his “vital rich-hued solo playing”, and “a true artist… a sight to behold” by Salt Lake City Desert News. In addition to solo performances, Mike’s touring bands include Biribá Union, Mike Block Trio, duo with Indian tabla player Sandeep Das, and Djékady, a West-African fusion band with Balla Kouyaté. Since 2005, Mike has been a member of the Silk Road Ensemble, founded by Yo-Yo Ma, with which he earned a 2017 Grammy® Award.

As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap to stand and move while performing using his own patented design, The Block Strap, and is the Musical Instrument Consultant for Forte3D, the world’s first 3D-Printed carbon fiber cello. In 2020, Mike founded Play For The Vote, which organizes musical performances at polling locations across the country on Election Days with the goal of creating a more positive voting experience. 

As an educator, Mike is dedicated to creating transformative experiences, and is the Founder/Director of the Mike Block String Camp in Vero Beach, FL, Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop in Boston, MA, and Hangzhou, China, and teaches over 400 cello students online through his Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com. Since 2018, he has been on faculty at the New England Conservatory.

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Praised as “technically and interpretively impeccable and passionately communicative” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Graeme Steele Johnson is an artist of uncommon imagination and versatility. The clarinetist, curator and “musical detective” (New York Classical Review) recently garnered international attention for his rediscovery and reconstruction of a 125-year-old Octet by Charles Martin Loeffler, profiled in a full-page spread by The Washington Post. Released on his debut album Forgotten Sounds, Johnson’s world-premiere recording of the work was named one of The New York Times’ Best Classical Music Albums of 2024, nominated for a Gramophone Classical Music Award, and awarded BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Choice. As Artistic Director of the Loeffler Octet touring ensemble, Johnson led the Octet’s first present-day performances at the Library of Congress, Morgan Library, Harvard Musical Association, Phoenix Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, Chamber Music Northwest and many more.

Widely in demand as a chamber musician, Johnson has also performed recently at Ravinia, La Jolla Music Society and the Bridgehampton, Rockport, Moab, Cooperstown and Orcas Island Chamber Music Festivals, and in recital at The Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series. He appears regularly as a core artist at the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, Archipelago Collective Chamber Music Festival, Charles Ives Music Festival and Caroga Lake Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Vienna International Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Caroga Arts Ensemble, Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra and the CME Chamber Orchestra.

Since 2022 Johnson has served as the clarinetist of the award-winning quintet WindSync, “a major force in the American chamber music landscape” (Arts and Culture Texas). Johnson has also collaborated with such distinguished artists as Jon Kimura Parker, David Shifrin, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Peter Wiley and Bridget Kibbey, as well as the Miró, Balourdet, Aeolus, Callisto and KASA Quartets, Imani Winds, New York New Music Ensemble, Copland House Ensemble, Twelfth Night Ensemble and NEXUS Chamber Music.

Admired for his creative curation and engaging communication, Johnson has presented a TEDx talk comparing Mozart and Seinfeld, and serves as Artistic Director of the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival in Houston. Driven by his interest in shedding fresh perspective on familiar music, he is known for providing incisive commentary from the stage and in writing, in essays and program notes published widely in journals, concert programs and album booklets. He has also authored numerous chamber arrangements that have been heard around the world, including performances by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Australia), Moscow Conservatory, La Jolla Music Society and Krzyżowa Chamber Music Festival (Poland).

Johnson is the winner of the Hellam Young Artists’ Competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition; other recent accolades include the Saint Botolph Club Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award and the inaugural Lee Memorial Scholarship from the Center for Musical Excellence. He holds an exclusive recording contract with Delos/Outhere Music, and has previously recorded for Hyperion Records, Azica Records, MSR Classics and Musica Solis Productions.

Under the tutelage of Charles Neidich and Kofi Agawu, Johnson earned a doctoral degree from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where his research won the Elebash Dissertation Award. Previously, he earned two master’s degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Shifrin and Ricardo Morales, and completed undergraduate study at The University of Texas at Austin with Nathan Williams.