If you ever find a dictionary listing for “Jane-of-all-trades”, you might just find a photo there of cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins. In addition to being a musician, Jacobs-Perkins is also a gardener, a cook, a boxer, and an environmental activist. She even once moonlighted as a cheesemonger. Now, she can add Performance Today Young Artist in Residence to her ever-growing resume.

When it comes to all of her various interests, Annie Jacobs-Perkins says that she “uses music as an instinctive tool to connect to the world around her.”  She says that her music-making is not only informed by all of her experiences,  it is enhanced by them as well.

Jacobs-Perkins has performed as a chamber musician, soloist, and principal cellist in some of the world's leading concert halls, including the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands and Carnegie Hall in New York. She has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the Penfield Symphony Orchestra, the Burbank Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes.

Jacobs-Perkins is currently a member of the Callisto Piano Trio, the youngest group to ever medal in the senior division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. And, in 2020, she was hired as the principal cellist of the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, an organization in Boston committed to performing works by underrepresented composers in non-traditional venues. Jacobs-Perkins has a passion for championing the work of twenty-first century composers which has led her to work with composers such as Timo Andres and Jeffrey Mumford.

Jacobs-Perkins holds a Bachelor of Music degree with minors in German and English from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She most recently obtained a Graduate Diploma in May of 2021, also from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Annie Jacobs-Perkins is accompanied in these recordings by pianist Feng Niu.