Jack Perla has composed extensively for orchestra, instruments, voice and chamber ensembles. He has earned awards and fellowships from the Argosy Fund for New Music, American Composers Forum, the James Irvine Foundation, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the Chicago Symphony, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and numerous other organizations. Jack earned a DMA in composition at the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Pulitzer prize winner Jacob Druckman, and renowned composers Martin Bresnick & Lukas Foss. He earned his MM at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Academy Award winner (The Red Violin) John Corigliano.
The Louisiana and Hamilton (Ontario) Philharmonic Orchestras, the Oakland Symphony, Absolute Ensemble (New York City), New Music Chicago and various other groups have performed Jack’s compositions, at venues including the Yerba Buena Arts Center (San Francisco), Merkin Concert Hall & Music at the Anthology (New York) and the British Music Information Center (London). The Oakland Symphony has commissioned Jack three times, most recently in conjunction with the James Irvine Foundation, for Pixels at an Exhibition, premiered in 2002, Patrick Summers conducting. Prior to that OEBS commissioned Jack to create a work featuring the young musicians of the Oaktown Jazz workshop. The resulting work, ‘Trane of Thought’ drew standing ovations from capacity audiences and highest praise from the Bay area press, which cited the “high-energy impact” of the music.
