Jens Joneleit
"Music you can see and touch."
Eruptive, unconventional, and powerful - these traits dominate the music with which composer Jens Joneleit has made a name for himself on both sides of the Atlantic. Independent of a particular aesthetic school, Joneleit experiments ingeniously with timbre, texture, and space. His work is eclectic - alongside orchestral, chamber, and vocal works, he has written compositions for music-theatre, film, and radio drama. Influenced by both the setting and musicians, each commissioned work he writes is full of new ideas and has its own distinctive language.
Born in 1968 in Offenbach, Jens Joneleit left Germany after high school to study fine arts and composition in the USA. There he studied with Bartók-student Lewis Hamvas (Yankton, South Dakota) and with Robert Marek (Vermillion, South Dakota), and then in Joel Naumann's master class (University of Wisconsin, Madison), who had been a student of Stefan Wolpe. Since graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1997, Jens Joneleit has worked as a freelance composer. Today he lives in Berlin.
Following the widely-celebrated release of his first CD-portrait, recorded by the ensemble >gelberklang<, he was commissioned to write works for various orchestras and ensembles. These included Gestalt im Fluss, (2004, Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt), ...von anderen Räumen - Angst - leeres Schimmern (2006, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart) and Feld (2008, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra).
Ensemble Modern is one of the most important interpreters of Jens Joneleit's music. At the opening concert of the Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik in 2005, it premiered his five-part cycle Le tout, le rien. In 2006, it commissioned Joneleit to write Verve, a radio drama for ensemble and multi-channel tape. A recording of this work, a co-production with the Hessian Radio, was released in 2006 by Wergo in its Edition Zeitgenössische Musik des Deutschen Musikrats series.
Ensemble Modern also performed Joneleit's first music-theatre work. Der Brand. Proscaenium emblematicum premiered in 2007 at the ECLAT Festival for New Music in Stuttgart. Subsequently, Piero - Ende der Nacht was premiered in Munich as a co-production of the Munich Biennale and the Frankfurt Opera in 2008. The children's opera Sneewitte was successfully premiered in 2008 and has since been performed frequently.
Jens Joneleit was awarded the Ernst von Siemens composer's award in 2006. At the awards ceremony, the Berlin Staatskapelle under Daniel Barenboim premiered his orchestral work Elan. This led to further collaboration, as Barenboim and the Staatskapelle commissioned two works from Joneleit for the 2010/2011 season: His opera Metanoia, based on texts by René Pollesch, and the orchestral work YESH MEE‘AAHIN. In the same season, Ensemble Modern, under the direction of Peter Eötvös, performed the world premiere of Joneleit‘s Dithyrambes in Paris. Jens Joneleit‘s adaption of Gustav Mahler‘s Lied von der Erde was premiered by the Frankfurt Opera in 2011.
Jens Joneleit ended the 2010/2011 season with the world premiere of his piano solo Schnitt as part of the final concert of the Festival Klavierfieber in Berlin, and began the new season 2011/2012 with the world premiere of his guitar quartet Spuren, performed by the Aleph Guitar Quartet during the Festival Klangspuren Schwaz.
In December 2011, Jens Joneleit‘s piano trio TALEA was performed by the Boulanger Trio during the Klangwerktage Hamburg. His latest orchestral work Adagio will be premiered by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt under Sakari Oramo in March 2012.
Eruptive, unconventional, and powerful - these traits dominate the music with which composer Jens Joneleit has made a name for himself on both sides of the Atlantic. Independent of a particular aesthetic school, Joneleit experiments ingeniously with timbre, texture, and space. His work is eclectic - alongside orchestral, chamber, and vocal works, he has written compositions for music-theatre, film, and radio drama. Influenced by both the setting and musicians, each commissioned work he writes is full of new ideas and has its own distinctive language.
Born in 1968 in Offenbach, Jens Joneleit left Germany after high school to study fine arts and composition in the USA. There he studied with Bartók-student Lewis Hamvas (Yankton, South Dakota) and with Robert Marek (Vermillion, South Dakota), and then in Joel Naumann's master class (University of Wisconsin, Madison), who had been a student of Stefan Wolpe. Since graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1997, Jens Joneleit has worked as a freelance composer. Today he lives in Berlin.
Following the widely-celebrated release of his first CD-portrait, recorded by the ensemble >gelberklang<, he was commissioned to write works for various orchestras and ensembles. These included Gestalt im Fluss, (2004, Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt), ...von anderen Räumen - Angst - leeres Schimmern (2006, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart) and Feld (2008, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra).
Ensemble Modern is one of the most important interpreters of Jens Joneleit's music. At the opening concert of the Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik in 2005, it premiered his five-part cycle Le tout, le rien. In 2006, it commissioned Joneleit to write Verve, a radio drama for ensemble and multi-channel tape. A recording of this work, a co-production with the Hessian Radio, was released in 2006 by Wergo in its Edition Zeitgenössische Musik des Deutschen Musikrats series.
Ensemble Modern also performed Joneleit's first music-theatre work. Der Brand. Proscaenium emblematicum premiered in 2007 at the ECLAT Festival for New Music in Stuttgart. Subsequently, Piero - Ende der Nacht was premiered in Munich as a co-production of the Munich Biennale and the Frankfurt Opera in 2008. The children's opera Sneewitte was successfully premiered in 2008 and has since been performed frequently.
Jens Joneleit was awarded the Ernst von Siemens composer's award in 2006. At the awards ceremony, the Berlin Staatskapelle under Daniel Barenboim premiered his orchestral work Elan. This led to further collaboration, as Barenboim and the Staatskapelle commissioned two works from Joneleit for the 2010/2011 season: His opera Metanoia, based on texts by René Pollesch, and the orchestral work YESH MEE‘AAHIN. In the same season, Ensemble Modern, under the direction of Peter Eötvös, performed the world premiere of Joneleit‘s Dithyrambes in Paris. Jens Joneleit‘s adaption of Gustav Mahler‘s Lied von der Erde was premiered by the Frankfurt Opera in 2011.
Jens Joneleit ended the 2010/2011 season with the world premiere of his piano solo Schnitt as part of the final concert of the Festival Klavierfieber in Berlin, and began the new season 2011/2012 with the world premiere of his guitar quartet Spuren, performed by the Aleph Guitar Quartet during the Festival Klangspuren Schwaz.
In December 2011, Jens Joneleit‘s piano trio TALEA was performed by the Boulanger Trio during the Klangwerktage Hamburg. His latest orchestral work Adagio will be premiered by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt under Sakari Oramo in March 2012.
