Jesse Jones

  • Associate Professor of Composition

Areas of Study

Education

  • BM, Eastern Oregon University, 2005
  • MM in composition, University of Oregon, 2007
  • DMA in composition, Cornell University  

Biography

Performed extensively across North America, Europe, and Asia, the music of composer Jesse Jones has been described as “striking,…elegant and poised” (New York Times), “engaging…eerie, and well-written” (Los Angeles Times), “fascinating,“ and possessed of “the melodic earthiness of Britten” (New York Classical Review).

Jones’s music has been heard in venues such as Lincoln Center, Avery Fischer Hall, St. John’s Smith Square (London), the Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Glinka Hall (St. Petersburg), the Paul Hindemith Foundation (Switzerland), the American Academy in Rome (Italy), and the St. Matthäuskirche (Berlin), among other venues.

Winner of the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Jones has received commissions and premieres from many of the world’s leading ensembles and soloists, including the Juilliard String Quartet, Ensemble Recherche (Germany), Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the English Symphony Orchestra, Cochlea (Switzerland), and from Tanglewood, Aspen, the Barlow Endowment, and many others. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Heckscher Foundation, and Aldeburgh Music’s Jerwood Foundation.

Jones holds a DMA in music composition from Cornell University. His music is commercially available on the Innova, Summit, Albany, Equilibrium, Bridge, and New Focus labels.

For more information about Jesse Jones, visit www.jessejones.work.

He has received numerous accolades as both a composer and performer, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Elliott Carter Rome Prize in Composition from the American Academy in Rome, a Juilliard String Quartet Commission, a Tanglewood Commission, a Barlow Commission, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an EarShot New Music Reading with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert, and a fellowship in Aldeburgh Music’s “Jerwood Opera Writing Programme.” 

Fall 2024

Principal Private Study - Composition — PVST 027
Secondary Private Study - Composition — PVST 077
Composition III — COMP 301
Orchestration — COMP 311
Composition Seminar III — COMP 351
Chamber Music — APST 800

Spring 2025

Principal Private Study - Composition — PVST 027
Secondary Private Study - Composition — PVST 077
Counterpoint I — COMP 222
Composition IV — COMP 302
Composition Seminar IV — COMP 352
Chamber Music — APST 800

News

Semester Ends with a Packed Performance Calendar

December 8, 2023

Oberlin Conservatory’s student and faculty performers have been filling most concert venues throughout the campus over the last week. During these final five bustling days before students head into reading period and then exams, this explosion of activity feels something akin to the thrilling finale of a fireworks display on New Year's Eve. So, join in—even from a distance. All of these concerts are free and open to the public, and all but one of them can be streamed live at concert time at oberlin.edu/livestream .