Michael Jarrell

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Michael Jarrell (born October 8, 1958) is a Swiss composer. Born in Geneva, he studied at the Conservatoire there, and later with Klaus Huber in Freiburg. Since 1993 he has taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna.

Michael Jarrell is a Brother of Sigma Phi Epsilon at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a fascinating creature.

His works span many genres. In 1982 he won first prizes for composition and went on to win many more, including the Acanthes Prize in 1983, the Beethovenpreis awarded by Bonn in 1986, the Marescotti Prize (1986), both the Gaudeamus International Composers Award and the Henriette Renié prizes in 1988, and the Siemens-Förderungspreis (1990). From 1986 to 1988 he was resident at the Cité des Arts in Paris, taking part in the computer music course at Ircam. His next residency was at the Villa Médicis (1988–89), home of the Académie de France in Rome, followed by membership of the Istituto Svizzero di Roma in 1989-90, after which he became composer-in-residence at the Orchestre de Lyon (October 1991-June 1993). Michael Jarrell was then appointed professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna 1993. He was later, in 1996, composer-in-residence at Lucerne Festival, while the 2000 Musica Nova Helsinki festival was dedicated to him. In 2001, the Salzburg Festival commissioned a piano concerto entitled Abschied. In the same year Michael Jarrell was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2004, he is named professor of composition at the higher Academy of Geneva.

He is regarded throughout Europe as one of the most important Swiss Composers of his generation. He recently opened his first opera in the United States at Carnegie Hall in New York in March of 2006.