IT’S not often you get to meet a musician quite as cool as Dave Eggar.

For not only was the cellist-composer-arranger a classical prodigy at the Juilliard School, but he wrote the music for the movie “War Horse”, has done arrangements for the new Norah Jones’ album and, of particular interest to this writer, worked in Mindanao using music for conflict resolution.

While in the Philippines he’s met the formidable Senator Imelda Marcos, been blown away by the Manila rap battle “FlipTop” and become an expert on the subject of women dancing in Islam.

But it was the jam sessions in the remote province of Bukidnon, used as a powerful form of negotiation, that really impressed him.

Eggar has been in Canberra performing and doing music workshops, all because of his connection to the ANU’s “Pokémon Prof” Kenneth Lampl, (“CityNews”, August 3) who taught him that as a cellist he could push the boundaries into jazz and much further.

Eggar seems to have taken that advice and a quick glimpse at his bio shows him equally at ease with Bach and DJ Spooky.

“I’m 38 now but I’ve done a lot,” he says in considerable understatement.

Probably best known for the cello opening in Coldplay’s song “Viva La Vida”, he’s played with the Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Joshua Bell, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli and Harry Belafonte

With degrees from Harvard and the Juilliard, Eggar is not just a music man. “I love words,” he tells “CityNews”, “I love working with songwriters, I just love the text.”

He’s no stranger to theatre, either, having also worked in “The Way of the Rain”, an original music theatre show he created with Bylle and Robert Redford, Will Calhoun and Chuck Palmer. He also scored the film “Blind” featuring Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore.

Given his virtuosity, it’s no surprise to learn he grew up in a classical music family with a pianist mother and an illustrious career as a boy soprano. Setting his sights at age six on a production of “The Magic Flute” (the one with sets by Chagall), at the Metropolitan Opera, he announced: “Mom, I have to do this”, chose the “Queen of the Night” aria for audition and, weirdly, got the part and several more, including a ballet with Sarah Jessica Parker.

“Then my voice changed,” he sighs. “So it was back to cello and piano.”

It was at this pivotal point that the precocious young musician headed to the Juilliard and met Lampl, who helped him unravel one of the mysteries of the American music scene.

“Classical music is not easy in America, it doesn’t fit with the American psyche, but Ken was cool, he was a jazz guy.”

Gradually Eggar learnt how to do jazz as an improvised thing. He answered an ad from a folk-rock singer looking for a cellist, through him met NYC songwriters, toured Texas, played in the back blocks of the Appalachians, and went everywhere but Australia, until Lampl emailed him, “you should come”. He did.

In Canberra he’s been doing workshops with faculty members Lampl, Natalie Williams, and Chris Sainsbury, and has been enormously impressed by the enthusiasm of the music students he’s met.

“After Juilliard I had no preparation for recording, here they’re getting a grounding,” he says.

Eggar has a few simple words of advice for them: “There’s nothing special about me, I just work hard; put your knapsack on your back and get out there.”