Bryan Jacobs

Composer, performer, and sound artist, Bryan Jacobs’ work focuses on interactions between live performers and electronic sound. His pieces are often theatrical in nature, pitting blabber-mouthed fanciful showoffs against timid reluctants. The sounds are playfully organized and many times mimic patterns found in human dialogue. Hand-build electromechanical instruments controlled by microcontrollers bridge acoustic and electroacoustic sound worlds. These instruments live dual lives as time-based concert works and non-time-based gallery works.

His music has been performed by ensembles such as the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Wet Ink, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Pamplemousse, and defunensemble. He has had performances at Festival Ai-maako (Chile), La Muse en Festival (Paris, France), Festival Archipel (Geneva, Switzerland), Musica nova (Helsinki, Finland), MATA festival, St. John’s Church (Limerick), Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Borealis Festival (Bergen, Norway), and others. His acoustic and electroacoustic compositions have earned him national and international awards and scholarships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art competition, Centre for Computational Musicology and Computer Music, and RTÉ Lyric FM. He has participated in residencies at La Muse en Circuit in Paris and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany. He regularly performs his own compositions for guitar or voice with electronics at venues such as the Stone (NYC), Miller Theater (NYC), and the Wulf (LA). In addition to his artistic endeavors, Bryan is the co-founder of Qubit, a New York-based new music initiative that presents mostly emerging artists whose work involves creative uses of technology, and is a member of the composer/performer collective Ensemble Pamplemousse.