Composer
Biography:
Strong in concept, eruptive and idiosyncratic - these are outstanding characteristics of a music with which the composer Jens Joneleit has made a name for himself on both sides of the Atlantic. Independent of aesthetic schools, Joneleit plays with space, timbre and texture in a highly inventive way. His field of work is varied: in addition to orchestral, chamber music and vocal works, he creates compositions for music theater, films and radio plays. Depending on the cast and interpreters, he knows how to give each commissioned work an individual basic idea and language form.
Born on September 17, 1968 in Offenbach am Main, Jens Joneleit moved to the USA after completing his schooling and community service to study painting and composition at the same time - from 1991 with Bartók student Lewis Hamvas (Yankton/South Dakota) and with Robert Marek (Vermillion/ South Dakota), from 1994 in the master class of Stefan Wolpe student Joel Naumann (University of Wisconsin, Madison). Jens Joneleit has worked as a freelance composer since graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1997. Today he lives in Nieder-Roden near Frankfurt.
The recording of a first - much acclaimed - portrait CD by the ensemble Gelber Klang (2002) was followed by commissioned compositions for orchestras and ensembles, including the piece Gestalt im Fluss, premiered in 2004 by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. In April 2006, as part of the concert series attacca in the Theaterhaus Stuttgart, the world premiere of the orchestral work From other spaces - fear - empty shimmering followed by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR.
The Ensemble Modern has meanwhile become the main interpreters of Joneleit's music. As part of the opening concert of the Dresden Days of Contemporary Music in 2005, the five-part cycle Le tout, le rien, commissioned by the European Center for the Arts in Hellerau, was premiered. A recording of the work followed in 2006 (co-production with Hessischer Rundfunk), which was published by Wergo in the Contemporary Music Edition of the German Music Council. In the same year, Joneleit was commissioned by the Ensemble Modern to compose Verve, a radio play for ensemble and multi-channel sound reinforcement, which was first performed as part of the interdisciplinary Frankfurt Positions 2006 art festival. The composer also entrusted his first music theater work, Der Brand, to the leading new music ensemble. Proscaenium emblematicum, which had its premiere in 2007 at ECLAT – Festival for New Music Stuttgart.
In 2006 Jens Joneleit was awarded a prize by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. At the award ceremony in the Wiener Musikverein, the Berlin Staatskapelle, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, premiered his new work Elan with great success.
In 2008 you will be able to experience the premiere of three major works by Jens Joneleit: At the Munich Biennale 2008, Joneleit's second music theater work (co-production of the Frankfurt Opera) with the Ensemble Modern Piero - Das Ende der Nacht, and with the Munich Philharmonic Feld for orchestra will be performed for the first time sound, while in October the Jeugdtheater Sonnevanck Enschede will premiere Joneleit's children's opera Snow White (co-production with the Nationaltheater Mannheim).
Albums:
ARBITRARY featuring Tom Student:
ILLUVIATION featuring Roscoe Mitchell:
