Biography
Earning widespread notice for his richly colored and superbly crafted scores, American composer Pierre Jalbert is highly acclaimed for his music of “breathtaking beauty, lyricism, and intricacy” (San Francisco Chronicle). Among his many honors are the Rome Prize, the BBC Masterprize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm Foundation commission, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory.”
Jalbert has drawn inspiration from a wide variety of sources - from plainchant melodies to the natural world, as well as his French-Canadian ancestry. His works have been performed by the Boston Symphony, the National Symphony, the London Symphony, the Emerson String Quartet, the Houston Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, where he served as Composer-in-Residence. Hailed as “an acknowledged chamber-music master” by The New Yorker, his recent album releases include his Violin Concerto (2019), String Theory (2021), Air in Motion (2022), and Terra Incognita (String Quartet No. 5) (2023), which features the Escher String Quartet.
Jalbert is Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, where he has taught since 1996.