Charles Curtis
Charles Curtis
Cellist Charles Curtis was born in 1960 in Laguna Beach, California. After attending Juilliard he taught part-time at Princeton, performed widely in the solo and chamber music repertoire, and worked with the bands King Missile, Dogbowl and You Suck. From 1989 to 1999 he was principal cellist of the Symphony Orchestra of the North German Radio in Hamburg. His long creative relationships with experimentalists such as La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Alvin Lucier, Tashi Wada and Éliane Radigue have brought into being a body of distinctive works modeled on his cello-playing and performing persona. Naldjorlak (2003-2005) by Éliane Radigue is a concert-length solo cello work made collaboratively with Curtis, her first composition for an acoustic instrument and a live performer without amplification or electronic support. Some fifteen compositions by Alvin Lucier have involved Curtis in a central capacity; and he is the leading interpreter of La Monte Young's just intonation string music in the world. Curtis is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Calfornia, San Diego.