COMPOSER

Award winning composer Jake Gunnar Walsh has had works for solo instruments, voices, chamber ensembles, and full orchestral works performed across the United States and internationally.  Jake is a graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music (B.M. 2015) where he studied composition privately with Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann and Dana Wilson.  He continued his studies in Music Composition at Indiana University (M.M. 2019) as a student of Don Freund, Claude Baker, and David Dzubay.  

While at Ithaca College, Jacob received the Joseph Downey Composition Prize in 2014 for his art song Root Cellar composed for baritone and piano. In addition, he was a winner of the Smadbeck Composition prize in 2015 for his Chamber Wind Ensemble work Hive.  Jake’s choral piece I See Words in Color was the first prize winner of the NOTUS 2018 Composition Competition and premiered by the ensemble at Indiana University under the direction of Dominick DiOrio.  He was a finalist for the ASU Symphony Orchestra Gammage Beyond Composition Commission Competition in 2018.  Jacob has participated in masterclasses and lessons with such distinguished composers such as Melinda Wagner, Carlos Sanchez‑Gutierrez, Tansy Davies, Michael Gandolfi, Augusta Read Thomas, and Eric Ewazen.

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Recently, Jake has had his music performed on such diverse stages as the Boston Landmarks Orchestra at the Hatch Memorial Shell in Boston MA; Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival Emerging Composers concert in New York, NY; The Nebraska Chamber Players Concerts on the Creek in Lincoln, NE; Sun Sneeze! New Music Festival in Dallas, TX; RE: New Music at the Slate Arts and Performance in Chicago, IL; Luzerne Music Center Faculty Showcase Series in Lake Luzerne NY, and the 2017 Texas Music Educators National Association Conference in San Antonio,TX.

 

Jacob has been on faculty teaching Music Theory and Music Composition at the Ithaca College Summer Music Academy since 2016, and on faculty as Composer in Residence at the Luzerne Music Center since 2019.