2024 Winter Composer Festival

January 5 - 12, 2024

Austin, Texas

An 8-day festival celebrating new work and the composers/performers who make it

The 2024 festival is an opportunity for up to six composers and one early-career composer/performer ensemble to create, workshop, document and premiere new works in Austin, TX.

The festival is designed to:

  • Highlight the fundamental importance of making new things and doing so together

  • Move traditionally academic activities outside of academia

  • Foster the interchange of ideas between composers

  • Expand concepts of what percussion is and can be

  • Showcase this city we are proud to call home

  • Composers

    • Two 90-minute workshops with line upon line on your work

    • A three-hour recording block dedicated to your work

    • Unedited audio and video footage from said three-hour recording block

    • The premiere performance of your work on the final festival concert

    • Two lessons, one with each of the faculty (Julie Herndon and Bryan Jacobs)

    • Field-related talks

    • Housing in Austin, TX (We can’t be responsible for finding housing for partners/spouses/etc. Sorry!)

    Ensembles

    • Two three-hour recording blocks to use as you see fit

    • Unedited audio and video footage from said recording blocks

    • Time with line upon line and faculty composers (Julie Herndon and Bryan Jacobs)

    • Field-related talks

    • Housing in Austin, TX (We can’t be responsible for finding housing for partners/spouses/etc. Sorry!)

  • Composers

    • Composing an 8-10’ percussion trio for an agreed upon instrumentation, and submitting a performance-ready score by November 5, 2023

    • Performing an 8-10’ solo set on an evening concert 

    • Sharing for ca. 30’ on your work and/or work you’re excited about

    • Paying a $300 non-refundable acceptance deposit

    • Your own travel to, from and within Austin

    Ensembles

    • Performing a ca. 60’ evening concert 

    • Sharing for ca. 30’ on your work and/or work you’re excited about

    • Your own travel to, from and within Austin

  • Composers

    • June 4, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST: Application deadline

    • June 13, 2023: Decision notification

    • June 20, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST: $300 non-refundable acceptance deposit due

    • June 13 - November 5, 2023: Virtual collaborative period

    • November 5, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST: Score deadline*

    • January 5 - 12, 2024: Winter Composer Festival

    *If a performance-ready score is not submitted on time, festival participation will be revoked, without exception.

    Ensembles

    • June 4, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST: Application deadline

    • June 13, 2023: Decision notification

    • January 5 - 12, 2024: Winter Composer Festival

Faculty

Julie Herndon

Julie Herndon is a composer, performer, and sound artist exploring the body’s relationship to sound.  

Her electroacoustic work has been described as “truly brilliant and utterly affected” (Kulturpunkt), “like a signal from another world” (Tages-Anzeiger), and “blended to inhabit a surprisingly expressive space” (SFCV). Her compositions and installations have been presented at MATA Festival and National Sawdust in New York, Artistry Space in Singapore, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (MACO) in Mexico, Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ), Sogar Theater in Zurich, and by Forest Collective in Australia. Recent collaborations include the Decoder Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Kukuruz Quartet.

Julie is the recipient of the Elisabeth Crothers Award for Music Composition, American Composers Forum Bay Area Residency, and Georges Lurcy Fellowship. As an artist in residence, she has collaborated with institutions such as the Cité Internationale des Arts, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Center for Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at Berkeley, and Djerassi Artist Residency Program.

Julie is currently Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at California Polytechnic State University. She holds a DMA from Stanford University, and her writing, “Embodied Composition: Composing the Body with Sound” can be found in Leonardo with MIT Press. 

Bryan Jacobs

Composer, performer, and sound artist, Bryan Jacobs’ work focuses on interactions between live performers, mechanical instruments and computers. His pieces are often theatrical in nature, pitting blabber-mouthed fanciful showoffs against timid reluctants. The sounds are playfully organized and many times mimic patterns found in human dialogue. Hand-built electromechanical instruments controlled by microcontrollers bridge acoustic and electroacoutic sound worlds. These instruments live dual lives as time-based concert works and non-time-based gallery works.

His music has been performed by ensembles such as the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Wet Ink, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Pamplemousse, and defunensemble.  His music has been featured at many music festivals in Europe and the US. He is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow. He has performed his own compositions for guitar and electronics at the Stone (NYC), Miller Theater (NYC), and the Wulf (LA). In addition to his artistic endeavors, Bryan is a member of the performer/composer collective, Ensemble Pamplemousse.