Colin and Eric Jacobsen have traveled the world playing music with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma among others.
But even with their international successes and recognition, the two always remember where the journey started — Great Neck.
“Since we’ve been out in the world, we make time to come back to Great Neck and perform at the library and school, and visit Andrea Kay who was our teacher at Lakeville,” Colin Jacobsen said. “I think even Eric still goes to the dentist in Great Neck believe it or not.”
Colin ’s and Eric’s father, Edmund Jacobsen, a violinist for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, had moved to Great Neck when Colin, who is four years older than his brother, was two.
And the music careers of both boys started early.
Colin said he remembers starting to play instruments at four, and recalls his younger brother starting around the same age.
Though he never forced music on them, Colin said, his father was a big influence on his and his brother’s musical aspirations.
“We grew up picking him up from work,” he said. “We got to see all the crazy backstage stuff that happened so that was a big contributor.”
Watching their father play on the big stage was only a small portion of the influence.
Late-night sessions between their father and his friends showed the brothers that music was something to be enjoyed with those closest to you.
“After hours he would bring friends over late and let me and my brother stay up and listen to him and his friends play music in our living room,” Jacobsen said. “We saw it as a social and fun thing to do.”
Edmund was at the time a single parent, following the death of his wife Ivy in car accident when the boys were very young.
Shortly after witnessing their father’s social gatherings, Colin and Eric found themselves playing alongside him as young boys at local venues like the Great Neck Library and The Lakeville School, where both attended elementary school. The family performances continued through their adolescent lives.
At the age of 18, Colin moved from Great Neck to Brooklyn to attend The Julliard School in Manhattan and continue his studies in music.
Four years later, he graduated from Julliard, only for Eric to then begin his first year of college at the midtown performing arts conservatory.
But Edmund and his two sons found ways to stay together and remain a close-knit family.
“Our dad actually sold the house in Russell Gardens and he bought an apartment on the Upper West Side so we all moved in and stayed together,” Colin said.
In the summer of 2000, both Colin and Eric joined international music sensation Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Colin as a violinist and composer, Eric as a cellist and conductor.
The Silk Road Ensemble is a musical collective associated with the Silk Road Project, a non-profit organization that promotes artist collaboration, multicultural artistic exchange, and the study of ideas inspired by cultural traditions of the historical Silk Road
“My brother and I playing with Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road have created special moments for us,” Colin added.
They traveled and performed across North America, Asia, and Europe, establishing themselves as talented musicians on an international level.
Instead of fighting against the nerves that come with performing on such a big scale, Colin said, he embraces the emotions.
“If you don’t feel any nerves, then that would be a dangerous place to be,” Colin said. “You want to be totally alive in the performance. You want that kick of adrenaline.”
Colin also said performing at the Todai-Ji, a Buddhist Temple Complex that boasts the largest bronze statue of Buddha in the world, in Nara, Japan was one of his most favorite places to perform.
International success led the Jacobsen brothers to founding the Brooklyn Rider Quartet along with violist Nicholas Cords and violinist Johnny Gandelsman in 2004. Brooklyn Rider helped Colin and Eric continue their successes.
This summer makes the 10th anniversary of the Stillwater Music Festival in Minnesota, a week-long chamber music festival founded by Brooklyn Rider to unveil new collaborations and artists.
While the brothers remain busy traveling the world to perform in big cities, they make time to return to the Long Island town that was home to their early influences and experiences.
Colin said continuing to travel and play music with his brother has been key to their brotherhood.
“It’s the two of us traveling the world together and sharing the experiences,” he said. “Of course we do get intense with each other sometimes, but there is such a deep understanding there.”
The late-night living room sessions that helped start it all still remain a part of Colin and Eric’s lives just as much as the big stage performances.
“We still play in people’s living rooms and sometimes I am more nervous there than at the Hollywood Bowl in front of 20,000 people,” Colin said. “The joy of life and performing is about risk-taking. You always want to do something and create magic.”
Starting the end of September, Colin and Eric will be back performing across the eastern region of the United States with their orchestra, The Knights, made of musicians from the New York music world.
The series of concerts begins on Sept. 27 at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Ketonah, N.Y. with a program alongside Yo-Yo Ma.
