Jonathan Berger
Jonathan Berger (born, New York, 1954) is an American composer. His works include orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral and electro-acoustic music. He has been commissioned by several chamber ensembles and has enjoyed commissions and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bourges Festival, Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Chamber Music America. Berger’s recent commissions include a violin concerto, a piano trio, and his fourth string quartet. In addition to composition Berger is an active researcher with over sixty publications in a wide range of fields relating to music, science and technology. Berger lives in California where he is the Denning Family Provostial Professor in Music at Stanford University.
Berger was the 2010 Composer in Residence at the Spoleto USA Festival, which commissioned a chamber work for soprano Dawn Upshaw and piano quintet.
Berger’s recent recording of music for strings, Miracles and Mud, was released by Naxos on their American Masters series in 2008. His recent commissions include The Bridal Canopy for string quartet (Chamber Music Denver), a piano trio (Chamber Music Toronto and Stanford Lively Arts), a work for singer and chamber ensemble (The Spertus Institute), a work for interactive electronics, and a violin concerto (The Banff Centre for the Arts). In Spring 2009 he had two interactive sound installations on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. In addition to composing, Berger is involved in multidisciplinary research including studies in music cognition, recognition and transformation of musical patterns, and the use of music and sound to represent complex information for diagnostic and analytical purposes. Before returning to Stanford he taught at Yale where he was the founding director of Yale University's Center for Studies in Music Technology. Berger is the author of over 50 journal articles and book chapters.
Berger's operas, Visitations, with libretti by playwright and poet Dan O'Brien, premiered in April 2013.
His works can be heard on the Eloquentia. Naxos, Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, Centaur, Neuma, CRI, and CCRMA labels.