Award-winning composer Jay Reise wrote both the music and libretto for his opera Rasputin which was commissioned by the late Beverly Sills and premiered by the New York City Opera in 1988. The work was described in The Washington Times as “a spellbinding, challenging and profoundly beautiful creation.” Rasputin was given its Russian premiere in in 2008 by the Helikon Opera and has been performed by them over the last 10 years in Moscow, Estonia (Saaremaa Opera Festival) and Paris (Opéra de Massy). In November 2017, it was presented in Moscow as part of the commemoration marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. He is currently working on Orpheus in Meikai, a tone poem for koto and string quartet, and an opera Al Capone and Family. 

 

Reise’s Oscar Wilde-based ballet fairy-tale The Selfish Giant was commissioned and premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra in London conducted by Djong Victorin Yu in 1997. The River Within (Concerto for Violin and Orchestra) (2008) was premiered by Maria Bachmann and Orchestra 2001 and recorded for Innova Records.

 

Deeply influenced by Carnatic (South Indian) music and jazz (especially Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell), the music of Jay Reise is characterized by rich harmonies, dramatic gestures and vibrant rhythms. His music has been performed widely both in the United States and abroad including an all-Reise retrospective concert in Moscow in 2000.

 

Reise was born in New York City and his teachers included George Crumb, Jimmy Giuffre, Hugh Hartwell, Adrian L’Armand, and Richard Wernick. He has lived in Philadelphia since he was appointed to the music faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. Previous to his appointment at Penn, Reise taught for four years at Hamilton College during which he composed his first two symphonies supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim fellowship. Symphony of Voices was premiered at the Monadnock Festival, and his Symphony II was premiered by the Syracuse Symphony, conducted by Christopher Keene, and performed subsequently by the Philadelphia Orchestra. His Third Symphony was supported by the Dietrich and Rockefeller Foundations and premiered by the Long Island Philharmonic. 

 

Recent performances of Reise’s chamber music have taken place in Cuba and on tour in the United Arab Emirates. In 2015 his dance-poem The Gift to Urashima Taro was premiered by Exit Dance at the Newburyport Festival and The Inland Sea (Piano Sonata No. 3) was premiered by James Primosch in 2019. Covid-restricted online premieres included In the blink of an eye…, a miniature song cycle for soprano and 4 instruments, and The Warrior Violinist performed by the English Symphony Orchestra with Davood Ghadami narrator and Kenneth Woods conductor.

 

Recordings include The Devil in the Flesh and Other Pieces featuring pianist Marc-André Hamelin and, most recently, The Warrior Violinist with the English Symphony Orchestra. 

 

Awards and fellowships include the Fromm and Rockefeller Foundations, the US-Japan Friendship Commission, Bellagio, the Aaron  Copland Fund for Music, Barlow Foundation, the Hamilton College Medal for the Arts, and the Koussevitzky Tanglewood Prize in Composition.  

 

Jay Reise is Emeritus Professor of Music Composition at the University of Pennsylvania.