Jason Eckardt
Encyclopedia
Jason Eckardt is an American composer. He began his musical life playing guitar in heavy metal
and jazz
bands and abruptly moved to composing after discovering the music of Anton Webern
.
of The New York Times
wrote, “[Eckardt’s] music celebrates harmonic prickliness, rhythmic complexity and a density of ideas.” Though Eckardt has been associated with the New Complexity
movement, he is also influenced by American composers Milton Babbitt
and Elliott Carter
.
Major works include After Serra (2000) for chamber ensemble, Tongues (2001) for soprano and chamber ensemble, Reul na Coille (2002) for percussion and orchestra, Trespass (2005) for piano and chamber orchestra and the Undersong cycle (2002–2008), a series of four chamber works (A way [tracing], 16, Aperture, The Distance (This)) that, when played together without pause, form a concert-length supercomposition.
Some of Eckardt's compositions are inspired by extramusical subjects, such as extraordinary rendition
(Rendition), the sculptures of Richard Serra
(After Serra), W.S. Merwin's poem "Echoes" (Echoes' White Veil) and George W. Bush
's 2003 State of the Union Address (16). Subject, a work for string quartet, uses special concert lighting to recreate the conditions used to interrogate military detainees. Eckardt has also written about the influence of research in cognitive psychology on his compositional techniques.
Eckardt has received commissions for his work from several major institutions and performers including Carnegie Hall
, Tanglewood
, the Koussevitzky Foundation (1999, 2011), the Guggenheim Museum
, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (1996, 2008), Chamber Music America, the New York State Music Fund, Meet the Composer
, the Oberlin Conservatory and percussionist Evelyn Glennie
. His works have been programmed internationally by festivals including the Festival d'Automne a Paris, IRCAM
-Resonances, ISCM World Music Days (1999, 2000), Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Musikhost, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, New Consortium, International Review of Contemporary Music, Festival of New American Music and the International Bartok Festival. Eckardt’s catalog is published by Carl Fischer Music
.
, the Oberlin Conservatory, New York University
, the University of Illinois, Rutgers University
, and Northwestern University
. His is also the co-founder of Ensemble 21, the contemporary music chamber ensemble based in New York City. He is currently Associate Professor of composition at City University of New York
’s Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
and Graduate Center.
. Eckardt has also earned fellowships from 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. Eckardt’s compositions have received awards from the League of Composers
/ISCM (National Prize), Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel (Symposium NRW Prize), ASCAP (Morton Gould Award), the University of Illinois (Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award
) and Columbia University (Rapoport Prize).
, first as a guitar performance major before switching to composition, eventually earning a BA (1992). He continued his studies at Columbia University
, principally with Jonathan Kramer
, and earned MA (1994) and DMA (1998) degrees. He attended masterclasses with Milton Babbitt
, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough
, Jonathan Harvey
, and Karlheinz Stockhausen
.
"L'élaboration de surface d'ensembles de classes de hauteurs par l'utilisation de paramèters autres que ceux des hauteurs." Musique-Sciences, 2007.
"Process and Timbral Transformation in 16." Arcana: Musicians on Music, Volume 2. Hips Road. (ed. John Zorn), 2007.
"Devenir." L'Etincelle/IRCAM. November 2006, Number 1, 2006.
"Musikhøst Set Udefra." Dansk Musik Tidsskrif, Number 3, 2005.
"Surface Elaboration of Pitch-Class Sets Using Nonpitched Musical Dimensions." Perspectives of New Music, Volume 43, Number 1, 2005.
"Listening and Composing." Current Musicology, Issue 67 & 68, 2002.
"Review of An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt by Andrew Mead." Current Musicology, Issue 63, 2000.
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
bands and abruptly moved to composing after discovering the music of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
.
Compositions
Atonal and microtonal harmony, intricate rhythms, highly polyphonic textures and large-scale transformational processes are prevalent in Eckardt’s compositions. Allan KozinnAllan Kozinn
-Biography:He received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for the New York Times in 1977, and joined the paper's staff in 1991...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, “[Eckardt’s] music celebrates harmonic prickliness, rhythmic complexity and a density of ideas.” Though Eckardt has been associated with the New Complexity
New Complexity
In music, the New Complexity is a term dating from the 1980s, principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material" ....
movement, he is also influenced by American composers Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
and Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
.
Major works include After Serra (2000) for chamber ensemble, Tongues (2001) for soprano and chamber ensemble, Reul na Coille (2002) for percussion and orchestra, Trespass (2005) for piano and chamber orchestra and the Undersong cycle (2002–2008), a series of four chamber works (A way [tracing], 16, Aperture, The Distance (This)) that, when played together without pause, form a concert-length supercomposition.
Some of Eckardt's compositions are inspired by extramusical subjects, such as extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
(Rendition), the sculptures of Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
(After Serra), W.S. Merwin's poem "Echoes" (Echoes' White Veil) and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's 2003 State of the Union Address (16). Subject, a work for string quartet, uses special concert lighting to recreate the conditions used to interrogate military detainees. Eckardt has also written about the influence of research in cognitive psychology on his compositional techniques.
Eckardt has received commissions for his work from several major institutions and performers including Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, Tanglewood
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...
, the Koussevitzky Foundation (1999, 2011), the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (1996, 2008), Chamber Music America, the New York State Music Fund, Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer is an American organization founded in 1974 by the composer John Duffy as a project of the New York State Council on the Arts. It seeks to assist composers in making a living through writing music by sponsoring commissioning, residency, education, and audience interaction...
, the Oberlin Conservatory and percussionist Evelyn Glennie
Evelyn Glennie
Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, DBE is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society.-Early life:Glennie was born and raised in Aberdeenshire...
. His works have been programmed internationally by festivals including the Festival d'Automne a Paris, IRCAM
IRCAM
IRCAM is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris...
-Resonances, ISCM World Music Days (1999, 2000), Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Musikhost, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, New Consortium, International Review of Contemporary Music, Festival of New American Music and the International Bartok Festival. Eckardt’s catalog is published by Carl Fischer Music
Carl Fischer Music
Carl Fischer Music is a major publisher of sheet music based in New York City that has been in business since 1872. As one of the few remaining family-owned music publishers, it supplies educational materials to professional and beginning musicians of all ages, as well as new music works.Notable...
.
Career
Eckardt has taught composition, theory and musicology at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, the Oberlin Conservatory, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, the University of Illinois, Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, and Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. His is also the co-founder of Ensemble 21, the contemporary music chamber ensemble based in New York City. He is currently Associate Professor of composition at City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
’s Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College
The Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College is the music school of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York...
and Graduate Center.
Awards
In 2004, Eckardt was awarded a Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. Eckardt has also earned fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
, 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. Eckardt’s compositions have received awards from the League of Composers
League of Composers
The League of Composers/International Society for Contemporary Music is a society whose stated mission is "to produce the highest quality performances of new music, to champion American composers in the United States and abroad, and to introduce American audiences to the best new music from around...
/ISCM (National Prize), Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel (Symposium NRW Prize), ASCAP (Morton Gould Award), the University of Illinois (Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award
Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award
The Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award is an international composers' competition held annually in memory of Salvatore Martirano , who was an internationally acclaimed American composer and served as professor of composition at the University of Illinois from 1963 to 1995...
) and Columbia University (Rapoport Prize).
Education
Eckardt attended Berklee College of MusicBerklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
, first as a guitar performance major before switching to composition, eventually earning a BA (1992). He continued his studies at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, principally with Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Donald Kramer , was a U.S. composer and music theorist.- Biography :...
, and earned MA (1994) and DMA (1998) degrees. He attended masterclasses with Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
, Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey is the name of:*Jonathan Harvey , British composer*Jonathan Harvey , U.S. Representative from New Hampshire*Jonathan Harvey , British playwright...
, and Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
.
List of compositions
- Multiplicities (1993) for solo flute
- Flux (1994/95) for alto flute and ‘cello
- Excelsior ab Intra (1994) for soprano, 2 countertenors, baritone
- A Harvest of Thorns (1995) for two guitars
- Echoes' White Veil (1996) for solo piano
- Tangled Loops (1996) for soprano saxophone and piano
- Cuts (1996) for solo piano
- Paths of Resistance (1997) for solo guitar
- Polarities (1998) for chamber ensemble
- Transience (1999) for solo marimba
- A Glimpse Retraced (1999) for piano and chamber ensemble
- After Serra (2000) for chamber ensemble
- Dithyramb (2001) for solo soprano
- Equilibrium (2001) for voice and guitar
- Tongues (2001) for soprano and chamber ensemble
- Performance (2001) for mezzo-soprano and piano
- Reul na Coille (2002) for solo percussion and orchestra
- 16 (2003) for amplified flute and string trio
- A Fractured Silence (2004) for saxophone quartet
- Mirror-glass skyscrapers (2004) for mezzo-soprano and piano
- Trespass (2005) for piano solo and chamber orchestra
- Rendition (2006) for bass clarinet and piano
- Sweet Creature (2006) for solo bodhrán
- A way [tracing] (2006) for solo ‘cello
- Still (2007) for solo baritone saxophone
- Aperture (2007) for chamber ensemble
- The Distance (This) (2008) for soprano and chamber ensemble
- Riddle (2009) for piano solo
- Testing Against (2009) for chamber ensemble
- Subject (2011) for string quartet with lighting
Discography
- Jason Eckardt: Undersong (featuring A way [tracing], 16, Aperture, The Distance (This)), Mode 234.
- Jason Eckardt: Out of Chaos (featuring After Serra, Tangled Loops, A Glimpse Retraced, Polarities), Mode 137.
- Prism Saxophone Quartet: Dedication (featuring A Fractured Silence), Innova 800.
- Amy Briggs: Tangos for Piano (featuring Tango Clandestino), Revello RR7808.
- Jean Kopperud: Extreme Measures (featuring Rendition), Albany 1217/18.
- Claire Chase: Aliento (featuring 16), New Focus FCR 109.
- Nathan Nabb: Tangled Loops (featuring Tangled Loops), Amp 12.
- Michael Lipsey: So Long, Thanks... (featuring Sweet Creature), Capstone CPS-8773.
- Makoto Nakura: Ritual Protocol (featuring Transience), Kleos 5116.
- Nancy Ruffer: Multiplicities (featuring Multiplicities), Metier MSV92063.
- Marilyn Nonken: American Spiritual (featuring Echoes’ White Veil), CRI 877.
Publications
"Broadening Knowledge: An Interview with Ursula Oppens." American Music Review, 2008."L'élaboration de surface d'ensembles de classes de hauteurs par l'utilisation de paramèters autres que ceux des hauteurs." Musique-Sciences, 2007.
"Process and Timbral Transformation in 16." Arcana: Musicians on Music, Volume 2. Hips Road. (ed. John Zorn), 2007.
"Devenir." L'Etincelle/IRCAM. November 2006, Number 1, 2006.
"Musikhøst Set Udefra." Dansk Musik Tidsskrif, Number 3, 2005.
"Surface Elaboration of Pitch-Class Sets Using Nonpitched Musical Dimensions." Perspectives of New Music, Volume 43, Number 1, 2005.
"Listening and Composing." Current Musicology, Issue 67 & 68, 2002.
"Review of An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt by Andrew Mead." Current Musicology, Issue 63, 2000.