MADS TOLLING BIO

Mads Tolling, an internationally renowned violinist and composer, is a two-time Grammy Award-Winner and the 2016 DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Violinist. As a former nine-year member of both Turtle Island Quartet and Stanley Clarke’s band, Mads has spent most of his professional life touring internationally. Mads has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, and his recordings have received rave reviews in Downbeat Magazine, Strings Magazine, The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle. He has performed live with Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis, Kenny Barron, Leo Kottke, Sergio & Odair Assad and Paquito D’Rivera.

EARLY LIFE

Mads grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he started playing the violin using the Suzuki Method at age six.  Busking on the streets of Copenhagen with his sister gave Mads his first experiences in front of live audiences. At fourteen, after having played mainly classical music, Mads fell in love with American jazz, when his Dad gave him a cassette tape of Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool. After graduating high school, Mads moved to the U.S. to pursue jazz studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He studied with top-notch musicians such as Matt Glaser, Joe Lovano and Joanne Brackeen, and graduated Berklee Summa Cum Laude in 2003.

During his studies, renowned jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty recommended Mads to join bassist Stanley Clarke’s band.  Mads has since performed over one hundred concerts with Clarke worldwide, including the Newport Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl; and he appeared on Clarke’s album Toys of Men.

CAREER

In 2003, Mads joined the pioneering string group, Turtle Island Quartet. During his nine years in the quartet, significant highlights include winning two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Crossover Album with the recordings 4+Four and A Love Supreme – The Legacy of John Coltrane in 2005 and 2007. In 2015, Turtle Island was nominated for another Grammy for a collaboration with mandolinist, Mike Marshall.

In 2008, Mads founded his own bands, the Mads Tolling Trio & Quartet. The albums Speed of Light and The Playmaker, released in 2008 and 2009, feature much of Mads’ own original writing.  The Playmaker features Stanley Clarke and jazz greats Russell Ferrante & Stefon Harris. The MTQ album Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty – Live at Yoshi’s was released in 2012.  Mads’ Danish quartet, with guitarist Jacob Fischer, recorded an album in 2015 dedicated to one of Mads’ idols – the Fiddling Viking Svend Asmussen. This album led to extensive tours in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany.

In 2015, Mads came up with a new project and band:  Mads Tolling & The Mads Men. In the 2017 release, Playing the 60s, Mads takes us back to the 1960s serving up fun-filled nostalgia, exciting arrangements of familiar tunes and fresh takes on jazz standards and the not-so-standard – pushing the boundaries of where a violin can go. The album features vocalists Kenny Washington, Kalil Wilson and Spencer Day, and it spent two months on U.S. jazz radio’s top 30. Mads’ other notable recording credits include Teena Marie’s album La Dona; and jazz vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway’s At Last.

AWARDS & GRANTS

Mads has received Denmark’s Sankt Annae Award for Musical Excellence as well as grants from Queen Margrethe and the Sonning Foundation. In the U.S., he was honored to receive the Berklee Elvin Jones Award, South Art’s Jazz Road Artist Grant and the Intermusic SF Musical Grant.

SPACES & PLACES

As a leader, Mads has performed over 500 concerts all over the U.S. including Yoshi’s San Francisco & Oakland, Herbst Theatre, SF Jazz, Yerba Buena Gardens, Monterey Jazz Festival and Blues Alley in Washington DC.  He has entertained in Performing Arts Centers in Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, South Dakota and Pennsylvania – many venues large and small across the U.S.  Mads has performed for Danish royalty – Prince Frederik & Princess Mary – at the celebration of The Danish Embassy’s 50-year Anniversary in Washington DC. 

VIOLIN CONCERTOS

Besides his success as a performer, Mads Tolling is an accomplished composer.
In 2014, Mads was commissioned by Music Director, Michael Morgan and the James Irvine Foundation to write a violin concerto, Begejstring, for the Oakland Symphony Orchestra. The highly anticipated performance took place at the sold out 3,000 seat Paramount Theatre in 2015. The piece and performance turned out to be an overwhelming success, and Mads received high praise from the orchestra, critics and audience alike.

In 2017, Mads was commissioned to write another concerto – this time for the Pacific Chamber Orchestra. Mads wrote Yggdrasil inspired by Norse Mythology bedtime stories that were read aloud to him while growing up in Denmark. Mads’ violin concerto performances have reached around the U.S. and into Japan, where he in 2017 headlined Jazz Street Festival with Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in a double bill with legendary pianist, Toshiko Akiyoshi.

EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Mads is a thriving force in the educational aspects of jazz and improvisation. He has been active as a Yamaha artist and clinician and has led workshops, coachings and masterclasses throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Dubai and Japan. In 2017, Mads presented at the Jazz Education Network in New Orleans, and he recently served as governor on the Recording Academy Board and Grammy U in the San Francisco Chapter.

INTERESTS OFFBEAT

In his spare time Mads enjoys tennis, golfing and hiking. In 1999, together with his father, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

QUOTES

“A wonderful new voice on the violin – – – very refreshing!”
– Chick Corea

“Mads has the amazing talent and skills that few young musicians can match. His music is both beautiful and refreshing exhibiting his superb mastery of the modern American Jazz music that is rarely seen among his peers.”
– Jean-Luc Ponty

“Mads Tolling is the most exciting musician I have come across in the past ten years. This recording represents some of the most creative music making out there.”
– Stanley Clarke

“Mr. Tolling is a virtuoso who doesn’t abandon his listeners. “Speed Of Light”, with sophistication and maturity doesn’t abandon accessibility. This is fascinating, hooky and satisfying music and Mads takes it beyond the academy and back to the ear.”
– Leo Kottke

MADS TOLLING DISCOGRAPHY

Bob Weir & Wolf Bros – Live in Colorado Vol. 2 – (2022, Third Man Records)
Bob Weir & Wolf Bros – Live in Colorado – (2022, Third Man Records)
Lawson Rollins – True North – (2020, Infinita Records)
Erik Jekabson – One Note at a Time – (2020, Wide Hive Records)
Lawson Rollins –Airwaves: The Greatest Hits – (2019, Infinita Records)
SF String Trio – May I Introduce to You – (2017, Ridgeway Records)
Mads Tolling & The Mads Men – Playing the 60s – (2017, Madsman Records)
Mads Tolling Quartet feat. Jacob Fischer – Celebrating Svend Asmussen – (2016, Gateway)
Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet – Intercambio – (2015, Patois) **
Mike Marshall & The Turtle Island Quartet – Get here – (2014, Adventure Music) **
Albert Greenberg – The Lost American Songbook – (2014, Black Swan)
Chris Duarte – My Soul Alone – (2013, Blues Bureau Int’L)
Uwe Steinmetz & Fitzwilliam String Quartet – Absolutely! – (2013, divine Art)
Wayne Wallace – Latin Jazz – Jazz Latin – (2013, Patois Records) **
Glasshouse – Long Way Down – (2013, Glasshousemusic)
Erik Jekabson – Anti-Mass – (2012, Jekabs Music)
Mads Tolling Quartet – “Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty – Live at Yoshi’s” (2012, Madsman Records)
Noemi – “Sono Sole Parole” (2012, Sony Music)
Playstation – “Infamous II” (2011, Sony)
Nice Guy Trio – “Sidewalks & Alleys” (2011, Porto Franko Records)
Turtle Island Quartet – “Have You Ever Been…?” (2010, Telarc)
Mads Tolling Quartet – “The Playmaker” (2009, Madsman Records)
The Terry Disley Experience – “West Coast Jazz Impressions” (2009, Selfrelease)
Ann Hampton Callaway – “At Last” (2009, Telarc)
Mads Tolling Trio – “Speed of Light” (2008, www.madstolling.com)
Sekou Bunch – “The Next Level” (2008, Trippin N Rhythm)
Stanley Clarke – “Toys of Men” (2007, Heads Up)
Turtle Island Quartet – “A Love Supreme – The Legacy of John Coltrane” (2007, Telarc) *
Freddy Clarke – “Wobbly World” (2007, Wobbly World)
Jessica Fichot – “Le Chemin” (2007, www.jessicasongs.com)
Fernando Ortega – “The Shadow of your Wings” (2006, Curb Records)
Turtle Island Quartet & Ying Quartet – “4+Four” (2005, Telarc) *
Yotam Rosenbaum & Dave Samuels – “Balance” (2005, YRM)
Teena Marie – “La Dona” (2004, Universal)

*Grammy Winner     **Grammy Nominated
For a shorter bio, please download the EPK here