Bio


 

Growing up in Northern California, Brent Arnold’s first devotion was to guitar—his conduit to the underworld of rock, psychedelia, jazz, punk and noise. When, still a teen, he casually picked up a friend’s cello, he had a vision of new possibilities—and devoted himself to it. He thrived on the new instrument, eventually moving to Seattle to study at Cornish College of the Arts as a student of Walter Gray (original cellist of the Kronos Quartet), and then discovering his spiritual mentor in legendary jazz violinist Michael White (Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Roland Kirk, John Handy).

White’s practice involved training the mind and body as a single entity, and his belief in the mystic power of sound was a profound influence. Hours could be spent on a single note, learning to hear the harmonic substrata within it.

In Seattle, he was part of the adventurous music scene that included Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, Wally Shoup, Wayne Horvitz, Reggie Watts, Tim Young, Randall Dunn, Andrew Drury, and many more. At the same time, he became a go-to cellist and string arranger for indie/alt rock bands, working on records for Modest Mouse, Sleater-Kinney, Mark Lannegan, Quasi, Brand New, Mike Johnson, and many more. 

After a move to NYC in 2005, his adventurous cello playing and compositional skills found him working with Jim Jarmusch, Zola Jesus, Drew McDowall, Arun Ramamurthy, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Jessica Pavone, Steve Von Till, Lia Ouyang Rusli, DJ /rupture, and Hiro Kone.

He also became more deeply involved in interdisciplinary projects that combined music with theater, film, dance, performance art, puppetry, and more. This led to his work with Dave Malloy, Gelsey Bell, and Brittain Ashford in Ghost Quartet and collaborations with the Shadow Parks Department.  

In 2022 he began a collaboration with Grey Filastine, Walid Ben Selim, Ricard Soler, and Ali Abdi Omar on the opera Ali, which would premiere at La Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium in 2024. 

Currently he is composing for BAQ, his quintet featuring Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Zosha Warpeha (Hardanger d’amore), Brent Arnold (cello), John Murchison (bass), Alaina Ferris (harp).