Jason Eckardt

Greetings and thank you for visiting. I am a composer living and working in New York City. I strive to write sensual, multivalent works that are also rigorous, labyrinthine, and visceral. It is my intension that listeners will be compelled to follow different pathways through my music on repeated hearings, with no preferred route. I am also interested in the corporal and psychological dimensions of musical performance, specifically how one is transformed by the demands of music that requires the player to transcend physical and expressive boundaries.
As a personal request, I hope you will take a moment to scroll down to my "friend space" section and consider making a donation of time or money to one of these organizations. There are many other worthwhile charities, of course, but these are some that I have supported and happen to have MySpace pages. Also remember to give to your local music groups and organizations — they need your help.
Full-length bio:
Jason Eckardt played guitar in jazz and metal bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern, he immediately devoted himself to composition. Since then, his music has been influenced by his interests in perceptual complexity, performance virtuosity, and self-organizing processes in the natural world.
Eckardt has been recognized through commissions from Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the New York State Music Fund, Meet the Composer, the Oberlin Conservatory, and percussionist Evelyn Glennie; awards from the League of Composers/ISCM (National Prize), Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel (Symposium NRW Prize), the Aaron Copland Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, ASCAP, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the University of Illinois (Martirano Prize), and Columbia University (Rapoport Prize); and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Fondation Royaumont, the MacDowell and Millay Colonies, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music, the Composers Conference at Wellesley, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music.
Major festivals have programmed his works, including the Festival d'Automne à Paris, IRCAM-Resonances, Darmstadt, ISCM World Music Days (1999, 2000), Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Musikhøst, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, and the International Bartók Festival. Performances of Eckardt's music have been broadcast by the BBC, Saarländisches Rundfunk, Radio Socioculturelle, WKCR, the Australian Broadcasting Company, WBAI, and Cultura FM España.
Recordings of Eckardt's music include Echoes' White Veil by pianist Marilyn Nonken on CRI , Transience by marimbist Makoto Nakura on Kleos , Sweet Creature by percussionist Michael Lipsey on Capstone , and Multiplicities by flutist Nancy Ruffer on Metier . Upcoming releases include Trespass performed by Marilyn Nonken and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Tangled Loops performed by saxophonist Nathan Nabb, and Tango Clandestino performed by pianist Amy Dissanayake. Out of Chaos , a portrait CD including four chamber works performed by Ensemble 21, was released by Mode in 2004.
Eckardt has written on subjects ranging from applications of cognitive research in composition to Richard Serra's use of process from a musical perspective. His work has appeared in Perspectives of New Music, L'etincelle, Dansk Musik Tidsskrift, and Current Musicology. Upcoming publications include an article in Musique/Sciences; his contribution to Arcana II, edited by John Zorn, is available now.
Also active as a promoter of new music, Eckardt co-founded and serves as the Executive Director of Ensemble 21 , the contemporary music performance group in New York City. Under his leadership, the critically acclaimed Ensemble has earned a reputation for innovative programming and top-caliber performances, premiered over thirty works, and recorded for the CRI and Mode labels. In 1999, Ensemble 21 was the first American ensemble to collaborate in concert with IRCAM.
Eckardt received a doctorate in composition from Columbia University as a Presidential Fellow. In 1992, Eckardt graduated cum laude from Berklee College of Music where he was awarded the Richard Levy Scholarship. He has attended masterclasses with Milton Babbitt, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has taught at Columbia University, the Oberlin Conservatory, New York University, the University of Illinois, Rutgers University, and Northwestern University and recently joined the faculty of Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
ensemble21.com/eckardt