Jesse Jones – Bowed guitar; mandolin

Composer, conductor, and mandolinist Jesse Jones (b. 1978) is an American artist of wide-ranging tastes and influences. His music has been performed across North America, Europe, and Asia, and Mr. Jones has received numerous accolades as both a composer and performer. Most recently, he has been honored with a Barlow Commission, the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship from the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the highly coveted Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the Peter Tommaney and Mary Greves Fellowships from the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Sage Fellowship from Cornell University. Mr. Jones has participated in the Underwood New Music Readings of the American Composers Orchestra, received fellowships and honors from the University of Oregon, and enjoyed awards from ASCAP. His choral music is published internationally by Earthsongs.

The American Composers Orchestra, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, the Cornell Chamber Orchestra, the Oregon Composers Orchestra, the New Frontiers Chamber Orchestra, the Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra and others have presented Mr. Jones’ orchestral works. Others of his works have been programmed by the Argento Chamber Ensemble, the Momenta Quartet, the Tanglewood New Fromm Players, the iO Quartet, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Israeli Chamber Project, Ossia, So Percussion, FIREWORKS, the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Cappella Romagna, Cantori, and the Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players.

As a performer, Mr. Jones was featured, playing his own works, on the nationally broadcast A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor to an estimated live and listening audience of 6 to 10 million. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Jones toured extensively as a vocalist and mandolinist with the genre-busting ensemble String Helix, composing much of the ensemble’s core repertoire. Mr. Jones has also been featured on the stages of the Oregon Bach Festival and on public television.

Mr. Jones is currently a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, where he studies composition with Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, and Kevin Ernst, as well as piano with Xak Bjerken. In 2007, Mr. Jones earned his Master’s degree in composition from the University of Oregon, under teachers David Crumb and Robert Kyr, and in 2005 his Bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon University, under John McKinnon and Leandro Espinosa.