Pierre Jalbert

American composer PIERRE JALBERT has been recognized for his richly colored and superbly crafted scores and “music of fierce and delicate inventiveness [with] kaleidoscope of moods and effects.”(Cleveland Plain Dealer). Painting vibrant and picturesque sonic portraits for the listener, he has developed a musical language that is engaging, expressive, and deeply personal. Among his many honors are the Rome Prize, BBC Masterprize, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory,” and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Jalbert has drawn inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from plainchant melodies to natural phenomena, and his French-Canadian heritage. He has earned a reputation for his mastery of color, in both his chamber and orchestral scores, creating timbres that are vivid yet refined and tonally centered, combining modal, tonal, and dissonant sonorities as it travels new and unusual paths, while retaining a sense of harmonic motion culminating in a completed journey.

His music has been commissioned and performed worldwide, at venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Barbican, and by artists and institutions including the Symphonies of Boston, London, Seattle, Houston, Cincinnati, Vermont, Albany, Budapest, and Milwaukee, the National Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Cabrillo and Eastern Festival Orchestras, and the St. Paul and Los Angeles Chamber orchestras, the latter which co-commissioned his recent violin concerto. His orchestral song cycle, From Dusk to Starry Night, written for mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke, was performed in Montreal with the Orchestre Métropolitain, under the baton of Cristian Macelaru. He looks forward to a piano concerto for Marc-André Hamelin.

Hailed as “an acknowledged chamber-music master” by The New Yorker, his works have been performed regularly by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, along with violinist Midori, and the Emerson, Escher, Ying, Del Sol, Borromeo, Jupiter, and Chiara String Quartets, Pittsburgh New Music and Copland House Ensembles, the Morgenstern Trio, and at the Caramoor Festival, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, La Jolla Summerfest, and Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth.

He received two Meet the Composer grants, including one for its “Magnum Opus Project.” Jalbert served as Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, California Symphony, and Chicago’s Music in the Loft, and is a faculty member at the Atlantic Music Festival.

His recordings can be heard on the ArtistLed, Cedille, Albany, Gasparo, Yarlung, Helicon, and Summit labels; his violin concerto with Margaret Batjer and conductor Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on Bis records, and albums devoted to his music on the Copland House Blend and Orchid labels.

Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, to parents of French-Canadian ancestry, Jalbert grew up in northern Vermont and studied both piano and composition at the Oberlin Conservatory and University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with George Crumb.  He is Professor of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, and is a co-founder of Musiqa, a Houston-based new music collective.  His music is published by Schott Helicon Music Corporation, New York.

schott-music.com/en/person/pierre-jalbert

Hailed for his music of “considerable elegance… breathtaking beauty, lyricism and intricacy” (San Francisco Chronicle), composer PIERRE JALBERT’ is highly acclaimed for his richly colored, superbly crafted scores and intense, expressive musical language. His French-Canadian heritage has been highly influential in his work, having heard French and English folk songs and Catholic liturgical music growing up, and gaining a deep respect for music which communicates powerfully with an economy of means. His music has been performed worldwide by the London, Budapest, Boston, Houston, Seattle, Colorado, Vermont, and National Symphonies; the Cabrillo, Eastern Music Festival, and American Composers Orchestras; the Borromeo, Emerson, Chiara, Enso, Jasper, Escher, and Ying Quartets; Music from Copland House ensemble; Arizona Friends of Chamber Music; Los Angeles and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras; Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; cellist David Finckel; violinist Midori; and countless others. His many honors include the BBC Masterprize, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory,” two Copland House Residency Awards, Rome Prize, and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and California Symphony, and is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. His music is published by Schott Helicon Music Corporation (BMI).