Arnold Schoenberg, John Coltrane, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Michael Finnissy, Gagaku, Milton Babbitt, Brian Ferneyhough, Anton Webern, Helmut Lachenmann, Iannis Xenakis, Bill Evans, Guillaume de Machaut, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Korean Court Music / Egon Schiele, Richard Serra, Clyfford Still, Anselm Kiefer / John Ashbury, W.S. Merwin, Laura Mullen, Walt Whitman / Francois Truffaut, Lars Von Trier / Martin Heidegger, Bertrand Russell, Peter Singer
Greetings and thank you for visiting. I am a composer striving to write sensual, multivalent works that are also rigorous, labyrinthine, and visceral. It is my intention 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 is currently on the faculties of the City University of New York's Brooklyn College and Graduate Center.
Hi Jason, hope all is well in your world! If you happen to be in London...
Friday 22nd May
Following on from their sell out shows at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Red Velvet Curtain Cult shall inhabit and haunt the Benjamin Franklin House with site specific art, performance, film, oddities and happenings from 13 artists. Set in a Georgian house where layers of history unravel from behind panelled walls and deep-set fireplaces whisper ashes of deeds past, the artists will engage with and draw inspiration from the history of the space, including its most famous inhabitant Benjamin Franklin, he of keys and kites….
Expect spinning tops, glass armonicas, trepanning games, story telling, ceremonial mythologies, muffled whisperings, cyclical wanderings, all serenaded by the sound of a haunting electric cello…
Tom Estes Jack Catling Rebecca Chitty Ralph Dunn Michele Fletcher Sarah Grainger-Jones Ruth Harrison Sometimes Jasmine Linda Lencovic Emma Robertson Lili Spain Folie a Trois Richard Webb 7pm-10.30pm
Benjamin Franklin House 36 Craven Street London WC2N 5NF
Tickets £8 (£5 concession) Bar 7pm-10.30pm To purchase tickets, please call Alice at The Benjamin Franklin House on 0207 839 2006 or email info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org Please note that due to capacity tickets are limited to 40, so book quickly www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org
Email info@redvelvetcutaincult.com Please see www.redvelvetcurtaincult.com for details of artists and past events Curated by Lili Spain and Sarah Grainger-Jones
Thank you for the add! If you ever want to come Boston with Taimur, please let me know!! Maybe Kenneth Radnofsky and I can figure out something... a concert, a master class and etc.
Dear Jay, It was a great pleasure to listen to your Undersong last night @ Miller Theatre. The music flows like water made out of crystal clear materials. There were many moments of absolute beauty and your use of the instruments and the formal lay out of the whole is superb. Please extend the congrats to the musicians who have done an incredible job. Hope to listen a recording of the evening soon.
Hi Jason, here's a recent concert video from the premiere of a new little piece for a small instrument, Kent Olofsson's Alambic V for charango and electronics. The premiere was a couple of weeks ago. Take care! Stefan
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