BIO

The music of Rome Prize- and Guggenheim-winning composer, Jesse Jones, has been described as “striking,…elegant and poised” (New York Times), “engaging,…eerie, and well-written” (Los Angeles Times), “fascinating,“ and possessed of “the melodic earthiness of Britten” (New York Classical Review). 

Performed extensively across North America, Europe, and Asia, Jones’s music has been heard in venues such as the Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center, Avery Fischer Hall, St. Johns Smith Square (London), Seiji Ozawa Hall (Tanglewood), the Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), Glinka Hall (St. Petersburg), the Paul Hindemith Foundation (Switzerland), the American Academy in Rome (Italy), the St. Matthäuskirche (Berlin), and Aldeburgh Music (UK), among others.

Jones has received commissions and premieres from many of the world’s leading ensembles and soloists, including the Juilliard String Quartet, Ensemble Recherche (Germany), Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, the Momenta Quartet, cellists Jeff Zeigler & Zvi Pressler, violinists Joseph Lin and Nicholas DiEugenio, violist Kirsten Docter, pianists Xak Bjerken and Gloria Cheng, the English Symphony Orchestra, Alter Ego (Italy), Ensemble X, Cochlea (Switzerland), and from Tanglewood, Aspen, Bennington, MusicX, the Barlow Endowment, New Music USA, and many others. Jones has been awarded both the Charles Ives Scholarship and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Heckscher Foundation Prize in Composition, and an opera fellowship with Aldeburgh Music’s Jerwood Foundation. 

Jones holds a DMA in music composition from Cornell University where his primary teachers were Steven Stucky, Kevin Ernste, and Roberto Sierra. Jones currently holds a music professorship at the Oberlin Conservatory. His music is commercially available on the Summit, Innova, Albany, Equilibrium, Naxos, Bridge, and New Focus record labels.