Earning widespread notice for his richly colored and superbly crafted scores, Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967) has developed a musical language that is engaging, expressive, and “immediately captures one’s attention with its strong gesture and vitality” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). Among his many honors are the Rome Prize, the BBC Masterprize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm Foundation commission, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory,” and an Academy award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Jalbert has drawn inspiration from a variety of sources, from plainchant melodies to natural phenomena. His music has been performed worldwide in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Barbican. Recent orchestral performances include those by the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, the National Symphony, the Houston Symphony, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Louis Langrée. His Violin Concerto was recently premiered by a consortium of three orchestras and soloists; Steven Copes with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Margaret Batjer with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Frank Almond with the Milwaukee Symphony. Jalbert’s recent orchestral song cycle, From Dusk to Starry Night, written for mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke, was recently performed in Montreal with the Orchestre Métropolitain, under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru. Jalbert has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the California Symphony under Barry Jekowsky, and Music in the Loft in Chicago. Select chamber music commissions and performances include those of the Ying, Borromeo, Maia, Enso, Chiara, Escher, Del Sol, and Emerson String Quartets, and violinist Midori.
Jalbert is Professor of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, and he is a co-founder of Musiqa, a Houston-based new music collective. He returns in 2018 as composer in residence at Cabrillo Festival for his third time, when the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra performs the West Coast premiere of his In Terra on Sunday, August 12, during the finale Of Other Worlds concert.
