Jesse Ayers (Composer,Winner of the inaugural American Prize for Orchestral Composition)

JESSE AYERS was the winner of the inaugural American Prize for Orchestral Composition in 2011, and winner of the first Opera Kansas Zepick Modern Opera Composition Competition in 2016. Recent honors include the 2020 Governor’s Award for Ohio’s Outstanding Individual Artist, the 2019 Ohio Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year Commission, two Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Excellence Awards, the 2011 Dayton Ballet “New Music for New Dance” award, a 2010 MacDowell Fellowship, and seven “Finalist” awards from the American Prize. His music has twice been selected to represent the United States at the prestigious World Music Days festival.

His works have been performed in Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Portugal, and more than 100 U.S. cities. Recent commissions include those from the Akron Symphony, Soprani Compagni, the Indiana Bandmasters Association, the Ohio Private Colleges Instrumental Conductors Association, the Milligan College Orchestra, and the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod National Honors Band.

Much of his music is scored for large “surround-sound” forces and explores the intersection of the spiritual and natural worlds and the redemptive intervention of God in the affairs of the human race. Common themes in his music are hope, reconciliation, renewal, and restoration.  Ayers was recently honored with the rank of Professor Emeritus by Malone University, where he was twice awarded the school’s Distinguished Faculty Award.