Works performed by Earplay:

in this month are simples gathered
The Lead Plates of the Rom Press
Yaqira

Jonathan Berger (b. 1954) has composed for a wide range of instrumental ensembles, numerous vocal works, and electro-acoustic and inter-media pieces.

Berger was the 2010 Composer in Residence at the Spoleto USA Festival, which commissioned a chamber work for soprano Dawn Upshaw and piano quintet. Major commissions and fellowships include the National Endowment for the Arts (a work for string quartet, voice and computer in 1984, soloist collaborations for piano in 1994 and for cello in 1996, and a composer's fellowship for a piano concerto in 1997), The Rockefeller Foundation (work for computer-tracked dancer, live electronics and chamber ensemble), The Morse and Mellon Foundations (symphonic and chamber music). Berger received Bourges Prizes for electro-acoustic music (1984 and 1991) and commissions from WDR, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Chamber Music Denver, the Hudson Valley Chamber Circle, The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, The Jerualem Foundation and others.

Berger's most recent recording of music for strings, Miracles and Mud, was released by Naxos on their American Mastersseries in 2008. His recent commissions include The Bridal Canopy for string quartet (Chamber Music Denver), a piano trio (Chamber Music Toronto and Stanford Lively Arts), a work for singer and chamber ensemble (The Spertus Institute), a work for interactive electronics, and a violin concerto (The Banff Centre for the Arts). In Spring 2009 he had two interactive sound installations on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

In addition to composing, Berger is involved in multidisciplinary research including studies in music cognition, recognition and transformation of musical patterns, and the use of music and sound to represent complex information for diagnostic and analytical purposes. Before returning to Stanford he taught at Yale, where he was the founding director of Yale University's Center for Studies in Music Technology. erger is the author of over 50 journal articles and book chapters.

His works can be heard on the Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, Centaur, Neuma, CRI, and CCRMA labels.

Berger is Professor of Music, and Co-director of the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SICA) and the University's Arts Initiative.