News
Maestro Christopher Wilkins: "Ayers piece a knock out"
Christopher Wilkins
Music Director, Akron Symphony Orchestra
"Jesse Ayers' The Passion of John Brown is a total knock-out. On a purely visceral level it is magnificent. The audience was overwhelmed, and their powerful response has continued unabated. I keep hearing from people how moved they were by the music, the drama, the pacing, and the haunting 'flashbacks.' There is also a feeling that it has set a new standard in works of this type, narrated symphonic works that both inspire and inform. Read more
Akron Symphony Orchestra premieres Ayers' The Passion of John Brown
Jesse Ayers' The Passion of John Brown for orchestra and narrator, premiered October 17, 2009, performed by the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Christopher Wilkins with Broadcasters' Hall of Fame inductee Leon Bibb narrating.
The 19-minute work was commissioned by the orchestra in observance of the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry which helped spark the American Civil War. Read more
Concordia Wind Orchestra performs Ayers' "Mount Carmel" on tour
October 16-31, 2009. The Concordia Wind Orchestra from Irvine, California, under the direction of Jeff Held, will be performing Jesse Ayers' ...and they gathered on Mount Carmel October 16 in Houston, October 18 in Austin, and October 31 in Irvine, California.
The 20-minute, three-movement work was the first of Ayers' "surround-sound" works, with the brass split into two choirs on each side of the audience, two alto saxophones in opposite corners of the rear or balcony, and a few more players behind the audience with unusual instruments.
Ayers' work performed at international piano competition.
May 14, 2009. Jesse Ayers' Waldstein Express for 2-pianos 8-hands was performed on the opening concert of the Slobomir International Music Competition in Bijeljina, Repubic of Srpska. The work was performed by students of Professor Dubravka Jovicic, Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty, Belgrade, Serbia.
There were five students who wanted to perform this piece, so to add to the humor of the piece, the fifth player meanders in as though he is a passerby, and rotates into the piece. What enthusiasm in this performance! Read more
Ayers' work selected for national composers conference.
April 3, 2009. Jesse Ayers' Waldstein Express for 2-pianos 8-hands was performed at the national conference of the Society of Composers held in Santa Fe April 2009. This is the second time Ayers music has been performed at an SCI national. In 2005, his work for wind orchestra The Fire of the Living God was performed at the SCI National Conference in Greensboro, NC.
Ayers' "Dance of the Mountain Raindrops" televised on European TV
November 2-3, 2008. For the second time this year, Jesse Ayers' Dance of the Mountain Raindrops for piano and string orchestra has aired on Serbia's national television-radio network, RTS. On Sunday night, a portion of the work was televised as part of an RTS retrospective celebrating the highlights of its past 50 years of broadcasting. The entire work was broadcast again on Monday night on RTS radio. RTS broadcast the same work in full on television and radio in March.
The performance featured concert pianist Dubravka Jovicic, Ph.D., of Belgrade, Serbia, and the RTS Symphony Orchestra. Jovicic and the orchestra recorded Ayers' work in 1992 when it was selected for a the inaugural broadcast of a then new RTS-TV series World Premiere, a weekly program dedicated to premiering new concert works by living composers.
Ayers' "Dancing King" on tour
March 2008. Professional tubist Kenyon Wilson will be performing Jesse Ayers' work for solo tuba and pre-recorded accompaniment track, The Dancing King, in solo recitals in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carloina. Wilson also toured with Ayers' Dancing King in October 2007 in Nebraska, South Dakata, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and in March 2007 in New Mexico, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Colorado.
Wilson's first contact with Ayers' music was in 1991 when Wilson was a member of the famed Tennessee Tech Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble when it premiered Ayers'The Magical, Mystical Rain Forest, the other of Ayers' two works utilizing pre-recorded accompaniment track.
Ayers' work performed by Summit Choral Society
December 2007. Jesse Ayers' Veni Emmanuel for chorus and orchestra was performed December 12, 13, and 14, by the Summit Choral Society (Akron, OH) under the direction of Dr. Frank Jacobs. The work is a processional piece. The men begin singing softly in unison, like chant, from behind the audience. Then the orchestra begins playing the 14th-century hymn while the choir solomnly process in. From its dark, sombre beginning, the work becomes progressively brighter until the climactic "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
Ayers commissioned to compose new festival work
October 2007. Jesse Ayers has completed a commission to compose a new festival anthem, Arise, My Soul, Arise!, for the inauguration of the new president of Malone College, Dr. Gary Streit. The work is scored for the college's combined choirs [in the aisles], organ, piano, brass quintet, timpani [in front], and surround-sound winds [along the side walls and back], and includes audience participation. Ayers has also included narration pertaining to the college's 1892 founders, J.Walter and Emma Malone. One of the narrators was the great-great grandaughter of the founders.
Ayers receives 16th consecutive award from ASCAP
September 2007. Jesse Ayers has been named a recipient of a 2007 Award from the Amercian Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. The awards are announced annually by ASCAP and are determined by a panel of distinguished experts. This is the 16th consecutive year that Ayers has been so honored by ASCAP.
Ayers receives Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award
March 26, 2007. Composer Jesse Ayers has been awarded a 2007 Individual Creativity Excellence Award by the Ohio Arts Council. According to the Council, the cash awards are "peer recognition of [Ohio's] creative artists for the exceptional merit of a body of work that advances or exemplifies the discipline and the larger artistic community."
Artists' work was evaluated through an anonymous peer review process by an panel of out-of-state experts. The Council says that the highly competitive awards are only made to 8%-10% of applicants.
Of the forty or so applications received in the field of music compostion, only three awards were made. According to observers at the adjudication deliberations, which are open to the public, Ayers' music was the only music composition application to receive the maximum possible score from all judges on the music panel.
Ayers' major work on tour
March 2006. Jesse Ayers' newest composition, Jericho, will be performed on tour by the Wind Symphony of Concordia University Chicago under the baton of Dr. Richard Fischer. The 60-member ensemble will perform in St. Louis, Little Rock, Memphis, Peachtree City, GA, Pensacola, Mobile, Houstin, and Austin before their final home concert in Chicago.
Jericho is a dramatic, surround-sound composition for orchestra or band, plus narrator, that features unorthodox audience participation.
Ayers' music performed at national conference
October 2005. Jesse Ayers' music has been selected to be performed at the national conference of the Society of Composers. His composition, The Fire of the Living God, will be performed in Greensboro, NC, by the University of North Carolina-Greensboro Wind Ensemble under the baton of of Dr. John Locke, President of the American Bandmasters Association.
The conference is an annual three-day festival and will be attended by composers from across America.
Ayers' major work to premiere
April 2005. Jesse Ayers' newest composition, Jericho, will be premiered by the Valparaiso University Chamber Concert Band under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Scott Doebler. Jericho is a dramatic, surround-sound composition for orchestra or band, plus narrator, that features unorthodox audience participation.
This is the second time that Doebler and the Valparaiso Chamber Concert Band have premiered Ayers' music. In October 1999, they were the first ensemble to perform Ayers'...and they gathered on Mount Carmel, a major 25-minute, three-movement work for wind orchestra based on the great Old Testament contest between Elijah and the false prophets of Baal.
Composer Jesse Ayers selected for 2004 Essentially Choral Reading Session
January 2004. Jesse Ayers is one of five American composers selected to participate in the 2004 Essentially Choral Reading Sessions in Minneapolis, co-sponsored by the Minnesota Composers Forum and the Minneapolis-based VocalEssence ensemble conducted by Philip Brunelle. Ayers' work, The Seventh Seal, is scores for SATB chorus and chamber ensemble consisting of special-effects piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, and percussion, and is based on the apocolytic text found in Revelation 8: 1-6.
Selected composers will have their works read by the 26-voice VocalEssence Ensemble Singers and professional orchestral musicians. In conjunction with the reading session, composers will attend rehearsals with the musicians and mentoring sessions with bconductor Brunelle and internationally recognized composer Sven-David Sandström.
Ayers' music selected to represent USA at World Music Days
September 2003. Jesse Ayers is one of six American composers whose music has been selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music to represent the United States at the prestigious World Music Days festival. His work, The Fire of the Living God, was selected by an international jury of distinguished composers.
This is the second time Ayers has been honored by the ISCM. In 1992, his The Dancing King for solo tuba and pre-recorded accompaniment was performed in Warsaw, Poland, at World Music Days '92. The festival will be attended by musicians and music lovers from around the globe.