ABOUT

 

 

 

"The music of Jay Schwartz is hedonistic. You listen to it, and when you're finished you can't wait to listen to it again. His SoundCloud page becomes an almost physical addiction. It envelopes you in shimmering glissandi of infinite complexity, teases you with the briefest glimpses of tonal intervals, and rewards you with the endorphin payload of its potent climaxes. Unlike so much other new music, these rewards are both immediate and powerful."

 

VAN MAGAZINE

 

 

 

Composer Jay Schwartz was born in 1965 in San Diego, California, and immigrated in 1989 to Germany.

 

Renowned orchestras and ensembles have commissioned and performed his works.

 

"Jay Schwartz's compositions employ aspects of the physics of sound and utilize tonality in the context of the physics of organic harmony, making use of the overtone spectrum, microtonality, and glissandi in a poetic context with a captivating sensuous drawing power and an unabashed emotional disposition. Schwartz integrates these acoustical events in a clear, deliberately prolonged, coherent form, which generates a persistent metamorphosis as well as a conscious dramatic plan. Within these processes of continuously evolving unbroken development, cathartic events are aspired to, which culminate in concrete, usually harmonic, thematic material. Schwartz's homogeneous instrumentations uphold his ideas of clarity, simplicity and of organic sound.

As in his compositions, Schwartz intends in his sound-installations to capture the archaic aspects of sound and implements phenomena of physics such as resonance transfer, magnetism, and infrasonics. In Music for Autosonic Gongs the instrument remains untouched and resonates on its own accord through an electroacoustical process. The sounds are purely non-electronic and organic. The powerful acoustical effect is a synthesis of the archaic with the avant-garde, a fundamental idea of Schwartz's work."

 

Eric Marinitsch, Universal Edition

COMMISSIONS AND PERFORMANCES

by

the Utopia orchestra under the direction of Teo Currentzis

the New York Philharmonic

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

the Berlin Philharmonic - Schauroun Ensemble

the Berlin Symphony Orchestra

the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

the Festival Strings Lucerne

the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI

Tonkuenstlerorchester Vienna

the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (SWR)

the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra (WDR)

the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt (HR)

the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg

the Bavarian State Opera Munich

the Salzburg Opera

the Staatskapelle Weimar

Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Intercontemporain

the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra

Avanti Chamber Orchestra of Finnland

Remix Ensemble in Portugal

AWARDS

Bernd Alois Zimmermann Composition Prize City of Cologne

Heinrich Strobel Fellowship for Electronic Music

Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, residence 2014-2016

Rome-Prize German Academy Villa Massimo 2017/2018

Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellow in Italy 2019

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Jay Schwartz's works are published by UNIVERSAL EDITION, Vienna.

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