Bio

Recent collaborators of American composer, conductor, and pianist Jeremy Gill include conductors JoAnn Falletta, Stuart Malina, Steven Osgood, Gil Rose, and Jaap van Zweden; pianists Ching-Yun Hu, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner; the vocal sextet Variant 6, and the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet. Jeremy has written major works for flutist Mimi Stillman, oboist Erin Hannigan, clarinetist Chris Grymes, and pianist Peter Orth, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, Chautauqua Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Harrisburg Symphony, and New York Classical Players have each commissioned his music since 2016. Other commissions have come from the American Opera Project, Chamber Music America, Concert Artists Guild, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the American Composers Forum. Jeremy has received major awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, BMI, and the League of American Orchestras.

Despite the many challenges facing arts organizations world-wide during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020–21 season saw the world premiere of Jeremyʼs Quartet for Oboe and Strings by Dallas Symphony principal oboist Erin Hannigan and her DSO colleagues at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. Abroad, St. Gallen Symphony principal oboist Rosey Yiameos gave the world premiere of Epilogue, Jeremyʼs encore to/commentary on Richard Straussʼs oboe concerto, at the Tonhalle St. Gallen in Switzerland. And online, the Lowell Chamber Symphony gave the world premiere of Jeremyʼs 2003 Dirge-Fantasy for double string orchestra under the direction of Music Director Orlando Cela.

The 2021–22 season features a return to live performance, and with it many premieres. Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg gives the world premiere of A Twice-written Scroll for Ny Musik Birkerød on a concert of new American music that includes the European premiere of …and everywhere the sea (2017) with Chris Grymes and Jeremy on piano. Principal wind and percussion players of the Dallas Symphony premiere Corvus Mythicus, commissioned by the DSO to celebrate the installation of Dutch artist Arie Van Selmʼs Crow sculpture at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. The Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston premieres Winternacht, a trio for flute, viola, and harp, while in New York City, the Bowers-Fader Duo premieres Kingʼs Complaint, a Dowland-inspired setting of Shakespeare (from Henry VI, Part 3) for mezzo and guitar. And the New York Classical Players joins forces with Jeremyʼs long-time collaborators the Parker Quartet for the world premiere of Motherwhere: Bagatelles for Strings, after Bán, an NYCP-commissioned concerto for string quartet and string orchestra.

2021–22 also features premieres of several centennial commissions: Cantilena, a quintet for oboe, trumpet, viola, double bass, and piano, based on a theme by Robert Lau, will be premiered at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, commissioned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Foundation for Enhancing Communities. Valse Variée pour N.B., commemorating the 100th anniversary of the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, will be premiered at Merkin Hall in New York City. And to celebrate the centennial of Jeremyʼs alma mater the Eastman School of Music, oboe professor Richard Killmer has commissioned a work for massed oboes, oboes dʼamour, English horns, bassoons, and contrabassoons to be premiered by the Eastman double reeds on the Eastman Virtuosi concert series.

Recent premieres of Jeremyʼs music include Concerto dʼavorio (2019) by pianists Orion Weiss and Shai Wosner with the Chautauqua Symphony under JoAnn Falletta; The Journey (2019) by Cypriot soprano Marianna Suri, South African bass-baritone Chuma Sijeqa, and the Citizens of the World Choir under Jeremyʼs direction at the Illuminate Rotherhithe migration festival in London; …and everywhere the sea (2017) by Chris Grymes and Jeremy at The REACH Opening Festival at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Ainulindalë (2018), a tone poem for large orchestra after Tolkien, by the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra under Stuart Malina; Ladiesʼ Voices (2016), a setting of Gertrude Steinʼs play of the same name, by coloratura Chelsea Miller and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra; and Serenada Concertante (2013) by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under then Music Director Jaap van Zweden, featuring DSO principal oboist Erin Hannigan.

Described as “vividly colored” (The New York Times), “replete with imaginative textures” (The Dallas Morning News), and “exhilarating” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Jeremyʼs music has earned him residencies and fellowships with the Bogliasco Foundation (2017), Chautauqua Opera (2016), Copland House (2015), the American Opera Project (2013–14), and the MacDowell Colony (2013), as well as major grants from New Music USA (2017, 2015) and Chamber Music America (2011). In April 2019, National Sawdust presented a portrait concert of Jeremyʼs music, including the world premiere of Lascia fare mi (2018) and the NYC premieres of Duo for Violin and Piano (2015), and Whitman Portrait (2014). The virtuoso vocal sextet Variant 6 rounded out the program with a second NYC performance of Six Pensées de Pascal (2017), which will be released commercially on the Open G Records label in 2022. The concert, featured in The New Yorker and its criticʼs pick of the week, was performed to a capacity crowd.

In 2017, Gil Rose and Boston Modern Orchestra Project released the first recording of Jeremyʼs orchestral music, including Before the Wresting Tides (2012), Serenada Concertante (2013), and Notturno Concertante (2014), featuring Rubinstein-prize winning pianist Ching-Yun Hu with the Marsh Chapel Choir, oboist Erin Hannigan, and clarinetist Chris Grymes. Gramophone Magazine called this “a very warmly recommendable disc,” to which HRAudio added, “Jeremy Gill shines with three unique concertos in this latest release…and dissolves limitations of time, space, and consciousness in seductive, dreamlike flights of fancy,” while New Music Buff raved, “the composer’s ability to utilize such a large orchestra yet still produce lucid textures is a mark of genius.”

Deemed “a fine pianist” by the New York Times, Jeremy regularly appears as a pianist and conductor in music of his own and by his contemporaries. He has been a featured performer at major venues including Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall, National Sawdust, the Mansion at Strathmore, and internationally at the Museo dʼArte Orientale in Genova, Italy, Old Town Hall in Brno, Czech Republic, and Elvermose and Mantziussalen in Denmark. Jeremy has conducted over 35 world premieres featuring artists such as Eric Owens, Ching-Yun Hu, Evan Hughes, Lucy Shelton, and Randall Scarlata with ensembles including the Dolce Suono Ensemble, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Network for New Music, and the Tactus Ensemble of Manhattan School of Music. In recent seasons he has served as an assistant conductor for Juilliard Opera (2018), and guest conductor for Manhattan School of Musicʼs Tactus Ensemble (2018–21). During the 2019–20 season he conducted the chamber and main stage operas for NYU Steinhardtʼs Vocal Performance program.

Born in Harrisburg, PA in 1975, Jeremy studied oboe, piano, and composition before entering the Eastman School of Music. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, and studied internationally at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau (1993) and the Czech-American Summer Music Institute (1999). His principal teachers include Samuel Adler, George Crumb, Robert Lau, Yinam Leef, David Liptak, James Primosch, Jay Reise, George Rochberg, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, and Anna Weesner. He has served as the Composer in Residence with Chautauqua Opera, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival. He edited A Dance of Polar Opposites, a theoretical-philosophical work written between 1955–2005 by George Rochberg, published by the University of Rochester Press in 2012.