Born in Laguna Beach, California in 1960, cellist Charles Curtis has followed a singular path through the worlds of concert performance and musical experimentation. A graduate of the Juilliard School and the recipient of the Piatigorsky Prize, Curtis taught at Princeton and performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. His long creative relationships with experimentalists 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. His own creative work has spanned sound-based and installatory work in galleries and alternative spaces, as well as experimental rock merging sustained sine waves and spoken word. He has made original music for experimental films by artists such as Raha Raissnia, Luke Fowler and Jeff Perkins. Very recent performances have taken Curtis to Empty Gallery in Hong Kong, the Biennale Son in Valais, Switzerland, London’s Café Oto for a series of four solo concerts, the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, EMPAC in Troy, New York, the Fondation Cartier in Paris, and Blank Forms in New York. Since 2000 Curtis has taught contemporary music performance at the University of California, San Diego, where he is now Distinguished Professor of Music.