Short bio

JESSE AYERS (b. Knoxville, TN 1951) is winner of the 2011 American Prize for Orchestral Composition, co-winner of the 2011 Dayton Ballet 'New Music for New Dance,' and a 2010 recipient of a MacDowell Fellowhip. His music has twice been selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music to represent the United States at the prestigious World Music Days festival. His other awards include an Individual Creativity Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, 16 awards from ASCAP, and grants from Meet the Composer and the American Music Center. His music has been performed in Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, and over 100 U.S. cities. He has been a guest composer on university campuses in Iowa, Colorado, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee. Since 1997, he has taught at Malone University in Canton, Ohio, where he has received the school's Distinguished Faculty Award.

Much of his music is scored for large, "surround-sound" forces and explores the intersection of the spiritual and natural worlds and the redemptive intervention of a very real God in the affairs of the human race.