Jacob Collier Durham tickets

Jacob Collier is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer whose music fuses jazz, R&B, folk, classical, and experimental pop into something entirely his own. Born Jacob Moriarty in London in 1994, he grew up in a deeply musical North London household. His mother, Suzie Collier, is a violinist, conductor, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music's Junior Academy, and his maternal grandfather, Derek Collier, was a violinist who performed with orchestras around the world. Collier attended the Purcell School for Young Musicians before briefly studying jazz piano at the Royal Academy.

Collier's breakthrough came through YouTube, where he began uploading multi-instrumental split-screen videos in 2011. His 2013 cover of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" went viral and caught the attention of Quincy Jones, who invited Collier to the Montreux Jazz Festival and introduced him to Herbie Hancock. Rather than sign a major label deal, Collier stayed independent and recorded his debut album, In My Room, entirely by himself in the back room of his family home in Finchley. Released in July 2016, the album featured Collier singing every harmony, playing every instrument, and handling all production and arranging. It earned him two Grammy Awards before he turned 23.

In 2018, Collier launched Djesse, an ambitious four-volume, 50-song project featuring more than two dozen collaborators. Djesse Vol. 1, recorded with the Metropole Orkest, arrived in December 2018. Vol. 2 followed in July 2019 with more acoustic instrumentation, Vol. 3 in August 2020, and Vol. 4 in February 2024, completing the series. Across these albums, Collier worked with artists spanning genres and generations, including co-writing SZA's "Good Days," contributing vocals to Coldplay and BTS's "My Universe" (which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2021), collaborating with Stormzy, performing alongside Joni Mitchell at the 2024 Grammy Awards ceremony, and arranging "White Christmas" for Pentatonix. He also featured on Snarky Puppy's Family Dinner Vol. 2 and worked with Hans Zimmer on the score for The Boss Baby. In October 2025, Collier released The Light for Days, an album written in just four days using only his voice and a custom 5-string guitar he conceptualized and helped build.