Jonathan Berger (born 1954) is an American composer. His works include opera, orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral and electro-acoustic music. He has been commissioned by major ensembles including the Kronos Quartet, the

St. Lawrence String Quartet The St. Lawrence String Quartet is a Canadians, Canadian string quartet, and one of Canada's premier chamber ensembles. The Quartet was founded in 1989 and has served residencies at the Juilliard School, Yale University, the University of Toront ...

, Chamber Music Society Lincoln Center, and the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. Commissions include the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, Spoleto Festival USA, Harris Theatre, the Bourges Festival,

Westdeutscher Rundfunk Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (''West German Broadcasting Cologne''; WDR, ) is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the conso ...

, Chamber Music America, among others. In addition to composition Berger is an active researcher with publications in a wide range of fields relating to music, science and technology. Berger lives in California where he is the Denning Family Provostial Professor in Music at Stanford University. Berger was born in New York. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a 2016 recipient of the

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

. Berger's operas
Visitations
with libretti by playwright and poet

Dan O'Brien Daniel Dion O'Brien (born July 18, 1966) is an American former decathlete and Olympic gold medalist. He won the Olympic title in 1996, three consecutive world championships (1991, 1993, 1995), and set the world record in 1992. Early life O'Br ...

, premiered in New York in 2014 and has received subsequent performances in Rome and Boston. His chamber opera, My Lai was performed at the 2017 NextWave Festival in New York, by Rinde Eckert, Van Anh Vo, and the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

and subsequently toured in Asia and the United States. The work was recorded fo
Smithsonian/Folkways
Berger's opera
The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist
with libretto by poet

Vievee Francis Vievee Elaure Francis () is an American poet. She is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. She earned an MFA from the University of Michigan in 2009, and she received a Rona Jaffe Award the same year. Viev ...

is a reaction to the murder of

Eric Garner On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island after Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Video footage of the incide ...

. His works can be heard on the Smithsonian/Folkways, Eloquentia, Naxos, Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, Centaur, Neuma, CRI, and CCRMA labels.

External links

Berger's HomepageStanford University - The Human Experience - Music Expert Jonathan Bergerearplay new chamber music - Jonathan Berger
1954 births 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American composers 21st-century American male musicians American opera composers Living people Male opera composers Stanford University Department of Music faculty {{US-composer-20thC-stub