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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jens Gerd Joneleit (born 17 September 1968) is a German composer, known for his operas.
Jens Gerd Joneleit was born on 17 September 1968 in Offenbach am Main in Germany. His parents both played piano, and he learned music theory when he was only seven years old. In 1975 he started taking percussion lessons, and performed in a local marching band, and local rock and jazz groups. Around 1984 he taught himself piano and started composing his own music. He graduated from the Gymnasium in 1988, and for the next two years completed his community service. He moved to the United States in 1990 to study at the University of South Dakota, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with majoring in Art and a minor in Music in 1992. He then entered graduate school in painting at the University of Wisconsin, and completed his Master of Fine Arts in 1997.
From 1991 Joneleit studied music with Bartók's pupil Lewis Hamvas in Yankton, South Dakota, and in Vermillion, South Dakota with Robert Marek (1915–1995) and Stephen Yarbrough (born 1946). From 1994 he studied in Madison, Wisconsin with Joel Naumann, a pupil of Stefan Wolpe. In 2003 he hired Roscoe Mitchell of the Art Ensemble of Chicago for a recording session. The composer objects to reading only these names in his biographies, saying: "I was also a pupil of Mahler, Nono, Boulez, Stockhausen, of Bruckner and Wagner. Famous jazz players influenced me: Miles Davis or the Art Ensemble of Chicago with Roscoe Mitchell or Lester Bowie." Joneleit describes the influences on his music in greater detail:
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