BIOGRAPHY

Jacob Stern is a composer with proficiency and range. His 48-year career is distinguished both by his dedication to serious music composition and his work for theater, television and film (download his résumé).

Stern’s music has been performed throughout the United States, in Western Europe and Russia. He has written four symphonies, four concertos for piano and orchestra, two cantatas, numerous chamber works, as well as music for several solo instruments. Commissions from performing artists and symphony orchestras include:

• First Symphony, premiered by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, under Ward Moore
• Voyage, a duet for two guitars that has been performed in more than 500 concerts nationwide
• Shoah, a piano sonata that met with critical success when it was premiered in Moscow and broadcast on Russian television
• Piece for Woodwind Trio, which debuted in Dublin
• Row for Unaccompanied Piccolo and Lawrence Trott, first performed at Cami Hall in NYC
• Piece for Unaccompanied Tuba, written for Mark Nelson in 2002.

Honors and awards include nine Cine Gold Eagle awards, a Golden Palm from the Venice Internaional Festival, the Silver Award at the New York International Film Festival and designation as Featured Composer at the 9th Annual Composer’s Symposium.

As a Professor at the Mannes College of Music in NYC, Stern taught composition for for TV and film for 19 years, as well as gave private instruction in serious composition. More recently, he has taught music theory & history classes at Pima Community College in Tucson.

Born in New York City and raised in Arizona, Stern graduated from the University of Arizona, where he studied under Barney Childs, Robert McBride and Stanley Wolfe. He spent much of his career in NYC. Today he resides with his wife, the artist Jean Stern, in Tucson, where he continues to work on his music.