Cellist Greg Hesselink leads an eclectic musical life as a chamber musician, orchestral cellist and soloist. As a chamber musician, he is a winner of the Naumburg Chamber Award with the New Millennium Ensemble, and is a former member of numerous other ensembles including Sequitur, Newband (former caretakers of the Harry Partch instrument collection), the Argento New Music Project and New York Philomusica. Other ensembles he has performed with include the the Vivaldi Consort, Talea Ensemble, Flux Quartet, Speculum Musicae, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Group for Contemporary Music, American Symphony Chamber Players, and with the dance companies Cedar Lake, Mark Morris, Merce Cunningham and Nai Ni Chen. As an orchestral cellist, he was a member of the Manhattan Sinfonietta and the Bang on a Can ‘Spit’ Orchestra, as well as performing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and American Symphony. He continues to perform with the Locrian Chamber players, the Orchestra of the League of Composers and as principal cellist of Riverside Symphony.
An active promoter of new music, Greg has premiered more than 150 works including cello concertos by Ross Bauer and Daniel Weymouth, as well as James Tenney’s Song and Dance for Harry Partch at the Donaueschingen Musiktage (a double concerto for tenor violin and diamond marimba, performed on the tenor violin). Premieres include works by Stephan Wolpe, Charles Wuorinen, Helmut Lachenmann, John Harbison, Harry Partch and the chamber version of Duke Ellington’s piano concerto. He has been the recipient of numerous awards with his ensembles, including the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, NEA, Ditson Fund, Copland and Mary Flagler Cary recording grants, CMA, Fromm, Meet the Composer and NYSCA commissioning grants. Recordings can be heard on CRI, Nonesuch, Naxos, Bridge, Koch, Neuma, Albany, Wergo, Innova, PPI and Point Records.
Greg has performed at venues and in festivals across North America, Europe, Turkey, Japan and Indonesia. Venues include Carnegie’s three halls, Alice Tully, Avery Fischer, MOMA, the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums, the Library of Congress (100th birthday celebration for Eliot Carter), the National Cathedral, the Smithsonian Freer Gallery, Zipper Hall, the Andy Warhol Museum, Vienna’s Musikverein and Palais Lobkowitz, Philharmonie Chamber Hall (Berlin), Oji Hall (Tokyo), Salihara (Jakarta), throughout the Cappadocia region of Turkey, as well as numerous performances in Italy at the Spoleto festival with Colla Marionette, concerts with cellist Giovanni Sollima, and at the American Academy in Rome.
Greg Hesselink received his training at the Interlochen Arts Academy with Cris Campbell, the Eastman School of Music with Steve Doane and SUNY Stony Brook with Tim Eddy, as well as summer studies with Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Orlando Cole and Stephen Geber. He studied chamber music extensively with members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Alban Berg, Emerson, Tokyo, Prague, Bartok and Mendelssohn String Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio, Gil Kalish, Julius Levine, Jan De Gaetani and Martha Katz. A dedicated teacher his entire professional life, Greg has taught at Princeton, Sarah Lawrence, Hunter College, for 20 years at Mannes prep, and now at Ithaca College. During summers he has taught at Yellow Barn, Kinhaven, the Interharmony International Music Festival, the Summer Music Academy at Ithaca College and he regularly teaches at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.