Jay Reise

Reise spent his childhood surrounded by classical music and jazz, but began his composition studies with Jimmy Giuffre and Hugh Hartwell in 1970. After graduating at Hamilton College in 1972, he pursued composition study at McGill University (with Bengt Hambraeus and Bruce Mather), the University of Pennsylvania (AM, 1975; George Crumb and Richard Wernick), Tanglewood, and Carnatic rhythm with Adrian L'Armand.

He is currently Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reise is married to visual artist Cecilia Paredes and has two sons, Matthew Reise (born 1981) and Nicholas Reise (born 1983) from his first marriage to Esther Barazzone.

Reise's music draws on polyphonic classical traditions. After being influenced by the great western classical voice-leading tradition, he became interested in Carnatic rhythm and integrated its techniques into his style. This has resulted in a method he calls "rhythmic polyphony" in which rhythmic motives are developed within the phrase such that the cadence point of the phrase is implied by the rhythms alone.

Works written before the adoption of the rhythmic method include Symphony of Voices (1978) which was premiered at the Monadnock Festival with soprano Neva Pilgrim, and his Second Symphony (1980) premiered by the Syracuse Symphony, conducted by Christopher Keene, and performed subsequently by the Philadelphia Orchestra. His Third Symphony was premiered by Keene and the Long Island Philharmonic in 1983. His 2-act opera Rasputin with a libretto by the composer, was commissioned by Beverly Sills and the New York City Opera, and was premiered by City Opera in 1988. Rasputin received its Russian premiere at the Helikon Opera in Moscow, directed by Dmitry Bertman, in September 2008.

Works after 1990 include The River Within (concerto for violin and orchestra, 2008) premiered by soloist Maria Bachmann and orchestra 2001, James Freeman conductor; Concerto for Horn and 7 Instruments (2006) with Adam Unsworth and the Network for New Music, Jan Krzywicki, conductor; Powers That Be (2005) for piano quintet with the Cassatt Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin; Memory Refrains (string quartet in one movement, 2002) with the Cassatt Quartet; the piano solo suite Six Pictures from 'The Devil in the Flesh' by Marc-André Hamelin; the Oscar Wilde-based ballet fairy-tale The Selfish Giant by the Philharmonia Orchestra with conductor Djong Victorin Yu in London in 1997; and two extended piano works, Sonata Rhythmikosmos (Mari Akagi) and Rhythmic Garlands (James Primosch). His left hand transcriptions of Scriabin's Études Op. 2, No. 1 and Op. 8, No. 12 have been performed by Gary Graffman and Matthew Bengtson.

Some works by Reise have been performed by Anastasia Vedyakova for the first time in Russia.

Reise's music is published by Merion Music/Theodore Presser. The Scriabin transcriptions are published in the Journal of the Scriabin Society of America.

• "Context, Choice and Issues of Perceived Determinism in Music", in Indeterminacy: The Mapped, the Navigable, and the Uncharted, Jose V. Ciprut, Contributing Editor (MIT Press, 2008 forthcoming): 241–266
• "Lukas Foss: Ways of Looking at Music" in National Gallery of Art (2001): non paginated
• "The Phonograph Behind the Door: Some Thoughts on Musical Literacy," [with Peter J. Rabinowitz] in Reading World Literature: Theory, History, Practice, edited by Sarah Lawall (University of Texas Press, 1994): 287–308.
• "Doctrine of Despair: Zimmermann's Die Soldaten", Opera News (September): 1991
• "Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the Style," 19th-Century Music (Spring, 1983): 220–231, reprinted in The Journal of the Scriabin Society of America (Winter 1996–97): 29–46
• "Rochberg the Progressive", Perspectives of New Music (1980–81): 395–407

• Freeman, James (2001). "Reise, Jay". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.‎

• Official website
• Jay Reise Theodore Presser Company (music publishers)