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composerbiography: ShawnJaeger

Described as “mournful” (New York Times), “luminous” (Washington Post), and having “a sound world of its own” (Pioneer Press), the music of composer Shawn Jaeger (b. 1985, Louisville, Kentucky) often draws inspiration from Appalachian folksong, field recording, and aspects of place. He has worked with leading performers, including Dawn Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Dal Niente, Longleash, Contemporaneous, Alexi Kenney, Ryan Muncy, and Vicky Chow. His music has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Morgan Library, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Jordan Hall, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, and on such festivals as Tanglewood, MATA, FERUS, and Resonant Bodies.

He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the American Composers Forum/Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund), Roulette/Jerome Foundation, the BMI Foundation/Concert Artists Guild (Carlos Surinach Commission), and Chamber Music America. His awards include the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, Northwestern University’s M. William Karlins and William T. Faricy Awards, the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and two BMI Student Composer Awards. His opera, Payne Hollow, received coverage in Modern Farmer and a mention in Gene Logsdon’s Letters to a Young Farmer.

Jaeger holds a DMA from Northwestern University, and a BM from the University of Michigan. He has taught composition at the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division and Tufts University, was a 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow, and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Brown University. He lives in New York City.