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Equally at home with concert, theatre and film music, Jed Feuer is one of the most versatile composers writing today. As a jazz trumpeter, he leads his quintet, Bipolar, the newest, most unusual jazz ensemble on the scene today, in recordings and performances.
Born in Los Angeles in 1948, he was moved to New York City at the age of two weeks. While growing up in a musical family, his talent showed itself early. An April 1953 report card from New York's Dalcroze School of Music describes him at age five. "Jed has extraordinary musical coordination and rhythm. His ear is remarkably good, as is his singing. His teachers feel that despite his having been here only since February, he should enter an advanced class in rhythm and singing. He is also ready for piano improvisation."
Because his father had started as a professional trumpet player, there were horns lying around the house and by the age of eight, Jed was making rapid progress under the tutelage of the legendary Joe Wilder (he would later study with Albert Ligotti of the NY Philharmonic, then Carmine Fortunato). Piano studies followed shortly thereafter and led to studies in harmony, theory, counterpoint and composition.
Although working at piano performance during much of the '60s and '70s, due to a lifelong obsession with sculpture, composition was put on hold for quite a few years. In 1982, his first Off-Broadway musical, American Princess, was produced. In '83, he underscored a London production of Prometheus Bound. A succession of theatre, film and television scores followed: The York Theatre Company's production of The Miser, - The PBS American Playhouse film, The Joy That Kills, - Memorial Day, produced by The Motion Picture Corp. of America, - No Means No, a CBS Schoolbreak Special, - The Scoundrel “D”, an operatic drama for the stage depicting the Dreyfus Affair, - the musical, Eating Raoul, Union Square Theatre, NYC (Samuel French, Inc., © 1993, the original cast album of Eating Raoul is the first to be recorded in Dolby Surround Sound), - The '60s, an NBC mini-series (1999), - the musical, The Big Bang, Douglas Fairbanks Theatre, NYC (Samuel French, Inc., © 2001) in which, aside from writing the score, he performed all twenty of the songs with the lyricist, Boyd Graham (both Eating Raoul and The Big Bang are today, produced worldwide). He wrote part of the score for Someone Like You (2000), 20th Century Fox and served as musical consultant for Alexandra Isles’ monumental documentary, The Power of Conscience: The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews - PBS (1995). In 2006, he scored The Healing Gardens of New York, another Isles documentary (PBS, July 2006).
From 1985 to this day, he has been writing music for documentaries produced by The Humane Society of the United States, an organization with which he's been associated for many years.
In the mid '90s, with Fugue in b minor for chorus & percussion, Feuer's focus turned more and more to concert music. Rhapsodic Incident, a trio for muted trumpet, harpsichord and contrabassoon, Tilt, a piece for percussion (including piano) and Reactions, a wind quintet with tubular bell, followed. Next came 22 Songs for soprano, baritone and piano (settings of poems, 1757-2000), A Brief Life for flute & piano, Elegy for cello, clarinet & piano, Quintet for violin, cello, oboe/Engish horn, French horn & piano, 5 Songs for soprano & piano and 4 A.M. for alto sax & piano. A 2000 commission resulted in Chamber Suite (the première of which was performed along with four other Feuer works, at Merkin Concert Hall, New York City, Dec. 16, 2003).
In 2005, he founded Bipolar.
He is about to begin work on the opera, Slaughterhouse-Five. |
