Jeff Myers - Biography

The music of Jeff Myers draws on preexisting musical works, styles and genres, as well as visual art and natural phenomena. Filipino kulintang music, works by M.C. Escher, overtone music, folk music and geographical narratives have been a source for inspiration. His operatic collaboration with writer and filmmaker Royce Vavrek yielded the one-act opera The Hunger Art, based on Kafka’s "The Hunger Artist" and the Adam and Eve story. Currently Myers is working on a new opera with writer Quincy Long and the American Lyric Theater based on Edgar Allan Poe's Premature Burial.

His music has been played ensembles such as by L’Orchestre National de Lorraine, American Composers Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, members of New World Symphony, University of Michigan Symphony Band, American Lyric Theater, Center City Opera, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Transit, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and the JACK Quartet. He has received awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI, as well as fellowships from the Aspen Festival, Tanglewood, Festival Acanthes, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and grants from institutions and private funds such as the Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, Puffin Foundation, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust, the Anna Sosenko Trust, and The Fromm Foundation. His music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, Kimmel Center, Darmstadt, Gaudeamus, Symphony Space, Arsenal, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Tenri Cultural Institute to name a few. He holds degrees from San José State University, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan. Jeff has studied with numerous composition teachers, including William Bolcom, Martin Bresnick, Michael Daugherty, Betsy Jolas, Bright Sheng, and Allen Strange. Jeff currently resides in New York City where he works as a freelance composer, orchestrator and copyist.