David Finckel (born December 6, 1951) is an American cellist and influential figure in the classical music world. The cellist for the Emerson String Quartet from 1979 to 2013, Finckel is currently the co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, co-founder of the independent record label ArtistLed, co-artistic director and co-founder of Music@Menlo in Silicon Valley, producer of Cello Talks, professor of cello at The Juilliard School, and visiting professor of music at Stony Brook University.
Finckel frequently collaborates with pianist Wu Han. The two were married in 1985. They regularly perform on the chamber music series in the United States, as well as across Europe and Asia. They also appear in trio performances with violinist Philip Setzer and clarinetist David Shifrin, and as a piano quartet with violinist Daniel Hope and violist Paul Neubauer.
David's more than 80 releases on the ArtistLed, CMS Live, and Music@Menlo LIVE labels include the staples of the cello-piano duo repertoire with pianist Wu Han and masterworks of the chamber repertoire with numerous musicians. In recent seasons, David has designed and produced more than 200 digital media projects, which brought the art of chamber music in dozens of communities across the United States.
In 2003, Wu Han and Finkel co-founded Music@Menlo, an annual chamber music festival. Alumni of both Music@Menlo's Chamber Music Institute and internship program have gone on to create and direct more than 30 chamber music organizations worldwide.
In 2002, Finckel developed and trademarked AudioNotes, an innovative complement to program notes. The listener guides are designed to offer audiences engaging introductions to many of the concert programs presented over the years.
Finckel's 100 online lessons on cello technique, Cello Talks, are viewed by an international audience of musicians.
Cowell: Quartet Euphometric; Harris: Three Variations on a Theme (Quartet No. 2); Shepherd: Triptych for Soprano and String Quartet with Betsy Norden (1990)
Piston: Concerto for String Quartet, Winds and Percussion (1990)[citation needed]
↑"Concert is benefit for Far Brook fund", The Item of Millburn snd Short Hills, December 31, 1981. Accessed July 3, 2026, via Newspapers.com. "David Finckel, cellist with the Emerson String Quartet, will give a concert to benefit Far Brook School January 9 at 8 p.m. in the YM-YWHA of Metropolitan New Jersey, West Orange.... Mr. Finckel, a native of Madison, is a Far Brook graduate who began his study of the cello with Mary Gili of 40 Elm Street."
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