Jacob Collier is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.
50 Facts About Jacob Collier
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Jacob Collier is known for his energetic live performances, in which he often conducts the audience to sing multiple-part harmonies or percussions.
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In 2014, Collier signed with Quincy Jones's management company and began working on his one-man, audio-visual live performance vehicle, designed and built at the MIT Media Lab by Ben Bloomberg.
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In 2016, Jacob Collier released his debut album, In My Room, which he recorded, arranged, performed and produced himself in the small back room of his family home in Finchley, North London.
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In 2017, Jacob Collier was awarded Grammy Awards for his arrangements of "Flintstones" and "You and I".
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In 2018, Jacob Collier began working on Djesse, a four-volume, 50-song album featuring more than two dozen artists and ensembles.
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In 2020, Jacob Collier won Grammy Awards for his arrangements of "All Night Long " from Djesse Vol.
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Jacob Collier is the first British artist to receive a Grammy Award for each of his first four albums.
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Jacob Collier grew up in north London, raised with two younger sisters.
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Jacob Collier's mother, Suzie Collier, is a violinist, conductor, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music's Junior Academy.
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Jacob Collier's maternal grandfather, Derek Jacob Collier, was a violinist who taught at the Royal Academy and performed with orchestras around the world.
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At age 10, Jacob Collier portrayed Tiny Tim in the Arthur Allan Seidelman film A Christmas Carol.
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Jacob Collier attended Mill Hill County High School in north London and the Purcell School for Young Musicians in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
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Jacob Collier briefly studied jazz piano at the Royal Academy.
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Jacob Collier began uploading homemade, multi-instrumental content to YouTube in 2011, releasing a vocal arrangement of "Pure Imagination" from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and in 2013, a multi-instrumental rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing".
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Jacob Collier's uploads used split screen, multitrack recordings of Jacob Collier singing each of the arrangement's harmonies.
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Jacob Collier's activity caught the attention of Quincy Jones, who flew Collier to the Montreux Jazz Festival where they met with Herbie Hancock.
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Around this time, Ben Bloomberg, a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, contacted Jacob Collier regarding the creation and development of musical hardware and software for live performance.
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In 2015, Jacob Collier launched a live show, touring Europe and the US.
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Central to the show was a custom-built vocal "Harmonizer" instrument that Jacob Collier designed and created with Bloomberg, which enabled Jacob Collier to perform multi-voice harmonies in real-time.
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In July 2015, Beats by Dr Dre reached out to Jacob Collier to provide the music for 'The Game Starts Here' England Rugby World Cup campaign.
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Jacob Collier recorded an a cappella version of the hymn "Jerusalem" for the commercial, which aired on national television before each England match.
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In late 2015, Jacob Collier began preparing his debut album In My Room, after performing with WDR Big Band in a concert in Cologne, Germany.
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Jacob Collier arranged, recorded and produced the album himself, playing every instrument.
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Jacob Collier recorded and mixed the album over three months in the music room of his family home.
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Jacob Collier received more than 130 melodies and donations, including from British jazz artist Jamie Cullum, Ben Folds, Herbie Hancock, and Kevin Olusola of the a cappella group Pentatonix, arranging "White Christmas" for them, which appeared on A Pentatonix Christmas, which won a Contemporary A Cappella Society award.
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In December 2016, Jacob Collier collaborated with 150 students at MIT to produce a 10 December live concert in Kresge Auditorium titled "Imagination Off the Charts", playing alongside orchestral arrangements of his repertoire.
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In February 2017, Jacob Collier won two Grammy Awards: Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella for the Stevie Wonder song "You and I" and Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals for a cover of "Flintstones".
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Jacob Collier helped score DreamWorks' film The Boss Baby with composer Hans Zimmer.
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Jacob Collier toured internationally for two and a half years, while hosting masterclasses and performances with orchestras and big bands around the world, including the Metropole Orkest.
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In December 2017, Jacob Collier announced that the One-Man-Show's final performance would be in Rome on 18 December 2017.
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Jacob Collier discussed plans for a second album, to be recorded in 2018.
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In July 2018, Jacob Collier was one of the surprise guests at Quincy Jones's 85th birthday party celebrations, at the Montreux Jazz Club.
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Jacob Collier performed alongside the Metropole Orkest under conductor Jules Buckley, and invited Take 6, Sam Amidon, Becca Stevens, and Maalem Gnawa musician Hamid El Kasri.
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Jacob Collier produced, arranged, and orchestrated the music, in addition to singing and playing various instruments.
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In January 2019, Jacob Collier began the Djesse World Tour backed by a band that included Portuguese singer and multi-instrumentalist MARO, bassist Robin Mullarkey, and drummer Christian Euman.
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On 26 April 2019, Jacob Collier released the second single from the album, a cover of The Beatles' song "Here Comes The Sun" in collaboration with Dodie Clark.
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On 29 November 2019, Jacob Collier released the first single from Djesse Vol.
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Jacob Collier was scheduled to continue touring in 2020, before the tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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On 25 March 2020, Jacob Collier released the second single from Djesse Vol.
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On 26 January 2021, Jacob Collier performed "Sleeping On My Dreams" on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
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On 20 November 2020, Jacob Collier released an a capella arrangement of "The Christmas Song ".
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On 1 January 2021, Jacob Collier released a voice memo recording of an original song, "The Sun Is In Your Eyes".
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On 24 September 2021, Coldplay and BTS released their single "My Universe", to which Jacob Collier contributed background vocals.
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On 2 May 2022, Jacob Collier was the subject of Alan Yentob's BBC One television documentary Imagine.
46.
On 10 June 2022, Jacob Collier released his first new song of 2022, "Never Gonna Be Alone", which features Lizzy McAlpine on vocals, with whom the song was co-written, alongside John Mayer on guitar.
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On 29 September 2022, Jacob Collier released his first live album, Piano Ballads.
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Jacob Collier collaborated with British rapper Stormzy in 2022 on his album This Is What I Mean.
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Jacob Collier performed a medley of Human Heart and Fix You with Coldplay on Saturday Night Live, Season 48 Episode 12.
50.
Jacob Collier's recording career began in his family home, in a room filled with instruments, where his mother used to teach violin lessons.