|
The American composer, Jason Bahr, received his B.M. from the University of Missouri - Kansas City Conservatory of music where he studied with Gerald Kemner and James Mobberly. At Indiana University, he received an M.M. and D.M. studying with Samuel Adler, Claude Baker, David Dzubay, Don Freund, and Eugene O’Brien.
Jason Bahr is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Jason Bahr’s works have received more than 180 combined performances in 29 states and 8 foreign countries. These include performances at conferences of the College Music Society, the Society of Composers, Inc. the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers, the New Music North Festival (Canada), Sound New (CA), Summer Music Series (Chester, England), the inaugural ppIANISSIMO festival (Sofia, Bulgaria), and the Sixth International Review of Contemporary Music (Belgrade, Serbia). Performers including Tim Adams, Jr., Winston Choi, Wendy Wendy Gillespie, Volti, the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra, the California State-Northridge Orchestra, the Butler Symphony Orchestra, the Indiana University Children’s Choir, newEar, Nota Bene, Walter Cosand, Paul Higdon, and the Medical Arts Symphony have performed in works by Bahr.
Jason Bahr has received awards and grants from the Fromm Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Northridge Composition Prize, the American Music Center, Renee B. Fischer Piano Competition, Kubik International Prize, ASCAP, SCI, and the Cambridge Madrigal Singers Bahr has received commissions from the Mountain Chamber Players, percussionist Grant Braddock (Exit 9), conductor Theresa Spencer (Cottey College), the University of Oklahoma Percussion Ensemble, and English hornist Krista Riggs. Tauromee Music and Keyboard Percussion Publications publish his works. He is a member of ASCAP, the College Music Society, the Society of Composers, Inc., and the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers.
Jason Bahr was featured as a guest composer at the 1996 C. Buell Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music in Ames, Iowa, where his flute quartet Contrasts was performed. Meditation and Fanfare (organ solo), was recently (as of 1998) premiered at the Third Annual CFAMC Conference in Bowling Green, OH. It was repeated in Bluffton, Ohio, as a part of the Bluffton University Bach Festival. Carlton (piano solo from Character Suite) was performed on the Sixth International Review of Contemporary Music in Belgrade, Serbia. Two pieces from Character Suite were performed at the "ppIANISSIMO 98" Festival of Contemporary Piano Music in Sofia, Bulgaria in March 1998. Lacerations (oboe and piano) was included in a forthcoming book on contemporary oboe techniques being written by Libby Van Cleve.
Recent Works: Symphony No. 1 (for band) was recently premiered at the University of Oklahoma. He is working on a set of songs, and will start a new work for violin and piano, Mysteries of Light, this summer (2011) at the MacDowell Colony.
When not composing, Jason Bahr frets over his student loan debt and the fate of the Kansas City Royals. During the 2003 baseball season, Bahr actually caught a foul ball, but later lost it down a sewer. Ironically, this incident encapsulates the 2003 Royals’ season precisely. SDG |
