Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Sebastian Delgado.
Hi Juan Sebastian , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Mendoza, Argentina—a place of sun, mountains, and wine—where I fell in love with the cello at a young age. Early performances opened doors I couldn’t have imagined, eventually carrying me far beyond the Andes. With full scholarships, I studied at the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy with the legendary Trio di Trieste and Enrico Bronzi, at The Boston Conservatory with Rhonda Rider, and later in Montreal at McGill University with Matt Haimovitz, where I completed my doctorate focusing on contemporary music and Nuevo Tango.
My work soon reached wider audiences: CBC Radio’s Ideas featured my artistic research across Canada, and I appeared on the TV program Découverte in the episode Virtuoso Brain. After receiving several competition prizes and grants, I built a multifaceted career, performing as a soloist, collaborating with composers, working in theatre, arranging music, and continually seeking new artistic challenges.
A defining chapter of my journey has been Stick&Bow, the cello–marimba duo I share with Canadian percussionist Krystina Marcoux. Together, we’ve created an eclectic repertoire of original arrangements and commissions, released three albums in three years with Analekta/Outhere, toured widely across Canada, Europe, and South America, and received two OPUS PRIZES in 2023—Artists of the Year and International Achievement. CBC described us as “boldly going where no cello and marimba have gone before,” a line that continues to capture the spirit of our work.
my work has taken me through 28 countries, premiering new music and collaborating closely with composers. Three cello concertos have been written for me, including Pájaro contra el borde de la noche by Luis Naón, commissioned by Radio France, Cinco Tangos Apócrifos by Jorge Bosso, and The Night of a Capricious Dawn by Jason Noble.
In 2017, I joined Creative Dialogues in Finland to work with Kaija Saariaho and premiered new pieces for strings and electronics. I later premiered Marcelo Nisinman’s Daniel’s Tango at the 2018 Lyon Biennale, and in 2019 I was invited by the Albanian government to perform in Tirana, presenting new works for cello and piano.
Research and teaching have always grounded me. I created a graduate seminar on tango history at McGill University, pursued improvisation research at the Université de Montréal with an FRQSC fellowship, and later became Faculty Fellow for the Arts at UMBC. After completing this two-year artistic residency, I was appointed Assistant Professor of Cello, a role through which I continue to weave together performance, scholarship, and mentoring.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
my life as a musician has also been shaped by challenges—ones that have marked me just as deeply as the music itself. Leaving Argentina meant learning to adapt, again and again, to unfamiliar landscapes and new ways of living. I learned two new languages along the way, each one opening doors while reminding me of everything I had left behind. I navigated different cultures, different expectations, and the quiet loneliness that comes from being far away from family and the close friends who watched me grow.
There were moments of uncertainty of questioning my place, my purpose, my path. Yet these moments were also part of the journey. With every move, every reinvention, I discovered new parts of myself. I learned resilience, patience, humility, and the strange beauty of starting over. Music became both my anchor and my compass, guiding me through the unknown and helping me make sense of who I was becoming.
In the end, these struggles were not obstacles but teachers. They shaped my artistry just as much as my formal training did, giving depth to my playing and purpose to my work. And in this ongoing journey of motion, displacement, and discovery, I continue to learn who I am both as a musician and as a human being.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What sets me apart is hard to define, because the cello already has a long history shaped by extraordinary players, artists who have transformed not only how we play, but how we think about music itself. It’s never easy to speak objectively about one’s own strengths, yet if I’ve learned anything along my journey, it’s that curiosity has been my greatest guide. I have always felt a deep eagerness to learn, to ask questions, and to surround myself with musicians who inspire me and challenge my assumptions.
My path, living, studying, and working in different countries, has also shaped me into what I like to call an “all-terrain cellist.” Although my primary artistic home is in new and contemporary music, working closely with living composers and premiering works that push the instrument’s technical and expressive limits, I’ve never wanted to live in just one musical world. I enjoy wearing many hats, exploring different styles, and embracing the full spectrum of what the cello can be.
In recent months alone, I performed both a baroque and a classical cello concerto; I work regularly with UMBC’s new music ensemble, premiering new works; I am composing music for my duo’s animated short film about cats; and I will soon be an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, where I’ll be working on an interactive sound–motion interface that blends improvisation, lighting, and staging. Alongside all of this, I teach cello and chamber music, another space where discovery, curiosity, and exchange shape everything I do.
How do you define success?
I believe that so much of our experience begins in the mind. Even though I can objectively say that I’ve had a meaningful, rich, and successful journey for my age, there is still an immense amount I hope to accomplish both professionally and personally.
For me, success is something deeply individual. It isn’t measured in financial markers or in the expectations imposed by an ultra-consumerist society, but in the things that genuinely move us, the values that live within us, and the goals that resonate with who we truly are.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stickandbow.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juanchi.cellist/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@legrandtango
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/juan-sebastian-delgado
