Biography

JEREMY HOWARD BECK’s music is an integral part of a life lived in search of extremes, adventures and adrenaline––lifelong passions for roller coasters and gymnastics have lent his music intense, visceral physicality and emotional immediacy. Described as “sparse and haunting” by NPR’s Weekend Edition, and hailed by the American Composers Forum for its “thrilling aural twists and bends”, his music for the concert hall and the opera house has been performed throughout the country.

His first opera, The Long Walk (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann, based on the memoir by Brian Castner, commissioned by American Lyric Theater), premiered in July 2015 at Opera Saratoga: “The plot’s tension is set, taut as a drawn bow.” (The New York Times Magazine) “This is what art does or should do: tell an intimate story that resonates universally. It shows us who we are.” (The Times Union) “The Long Walk is a masterpiece… a piece like this brings out all the best aspects of opera.” (Metroland) “… a remarkable achievement for any composer let alone one who had never written an opera… the crowd was rapt and at the end jumped to its feet with a roar of approval.” (The Daily Gazette) The Long Walk was recently performed by Utah Opera | Utah Symphony (March/April 2017), and it will receive its third presentation in a new production at Pittsburgh Opera (January 2018).

His work has been performed at venues including National Sawdust, Opera Saratoga, (Le) Poisson Rouge, the Opera America National Conference, Symphony Space, the Bang on a Can Marathon, Eastern Trombone Workshop, International Trombone Festival, the Norfolk and Bang on a Can Summer Festivals, and at NY Comic Con’s Super Week. He has received grants from The MAP Fund, NewMusicUSA, and JFund/American Composers Forum, as well as a residency at Yaddo (2014) and an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2011). He studied composition at The Juilliard School with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse, and at NYU with Mark Adamo and Deniz Hughes.