Jourdan Urbach

Jourdan Urbach is a serial entrepreneur and retired professional violinist. He was born in Roslyn, Long Island and currently resides in New York City.

Jourdan Urbach
Born	Dec 5 1991 Long Island
Alma mater	Juilliard Pre-College Yale University
Home town	Roslyn, Long Island
Board member of	World Economic Forum Global Shapers NYC, The Harmony Program,The Tennessee Arts Academy,[1] Goodwill Ambassador to the UN Arts for Peace Council

Early life

Jourdan Urbach was born on Long Island to Deborah and Victor Urbach.^[2] He started playing the violin before he was 3 years old and was playing professionally by the age of 7.^[2] His debut was at Carnegie Hall at the age of 6.^[3]

Elementary and Middle School

At 7 years old, Jourdan started Children helping Children by gathering together musicians and orchestras and performing with them at locations such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.^[2] Later, this turned into Concerts for a Cure,^[4] which raised over 4.7^[5] million dollars by the time Jourdan started attending college at Yale University. At the age of 9, he began working on Alzheimer’s research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory focusing on neurological diseases^[6] (in particular Alzheimers.) Later, Jourdan attended Juilliard,^[7] where he was featured in Teen People’s 20 under 20 list at the age of 13.^[8]

College

Jourdan matriculated to Yale at the age of 17,^[2] where he completed his B.A. in liberal arts. During his time at Yale he scored and sound designed for Yale’s version of Metamorphoses, and also famously failed his first semester of organic chemistry.^[9] During this same period, he scored for Elah and the Moon,^[10] which debuted at the Tribeca Film festival.^[10] Other composition work include work for Yale Dramat’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia,^[11] for the world premier of Oren Steven’s Phantomwise,^[12][13] among others.

His freshman year, Jourdan started ICCP,^[14] International Coalition of College Philanthropists.^[15] The ICCP is “is a council of college-age philanthropic entrepreneurs dedicated to coordinating and maximizing the effectiveness of fundraising operations at college campuses across the world.”^[14] In his senior year at Yale, he was chosen by ASCAP to write the score for the trailer to the Columbia Film Festival, which premiered at Lincoln Center and the IFC (International Film Center).^[16] Shortly before graduation, he was awarded the prestigious National Jefferson Award.^[17]

Post College and Current Work

Completing Yale in 3 years, Jourdan moved back to NYC to a position as the National Director of the Jefferson Awards^[18] to help the organization pivot from a focus on volunteerism towards a modern suite of social entrepreneurism programming. He served in this capacity for a year and half before becoming the Director of Research and Development as well as running mobile information architecture at MiMedia. Currently, Jourdan lives in New York City's Upper East Side, where he serves as CTO of the company he co-founded in early 2013, Mass Lab, which builds a mobile video platform called Ocho,^[19] which attracted 1.7m USD in investment from Mark Cuban and others in 2014.

He currently serves as an advisor and consultant to a number of emergent companies in the New York technology space. Jourdan is active on the boards of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers (New York chapter) and The Harmony Program,^[20] and works as a Goodwill Ambassador to the UN Arts for Peace Council.^[21] He reportedly spends his free time rock climbing, playing violin, and training in Muay Thai.

Musical Compositions

• Composer, Production of original play: Phantomwise, Yale Repertory Theater, October, 2010^[22]
• Composer, Production of Metamorphoses, Dramat, Yale Repertory Theater, 2009/2010^[23]
• Composer, Production of Arcadia, Yale Repertory Theater, 2010^[24]
• Composer, Elah and the Moon, short film by Director Vera Mulyani, screened at Tribecca Film Festival 2009 and Cannes Film Festival 2010^[25]

Selected Performances

• August 14, 2003 Lincoln Center Debut^[26]
• November 15 and 16 2009 - soloist with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony in NYC, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto^[27]
• November 22, 2009 - soloist with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto & debuting Chris Caswell’s acoustic/electric Violin Suite.^[27]
• January 18, 2010 - named 2009 Artist Ascending; will perform a recital in Memphis Tennessee for the Belz/Parker Artists Ascending Concert Series of Memphis, Tennessee, which “showcases internationally promising musicians at the early stages of their career.” This series has previously presented Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Mischa Dichter, and Daniel Barenboim as Artist Ascending.^[28]
• March 27, 2010 – Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, first half: recital performance; second half: electric violin performance with Mark Wood and The Trans Siberian Orchestra^[28]
• May 6, 2010 - Ventura Music Festival: “Up & Coming Stars”, directed by Maestro Nuvi Mehta^[29]
• June 11, 2010 – benefit concert for The Hemangioma Treatment Foundation, Washington, D.C.^[30]
• April 18 – ICCP Concert for a Cure, The Shubert Theater, New Haven, headliner, 2010^[31]

Research Awards

• Winner, 2nd Place Grand Award, “Super Oligodendrocytes,” INTEL-International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF), 2009^[32]
• Winner, American Academy of Neurology Neuroscience Research Prize, 2009^[33]
• Winner of University of the Sciences INTEL-ISEF Scholarship, 2008^[34]

Academic Awards

• Coca-Cola National Scholar, 2009^[35]
• Toyota Community Scholars National Award, 2009^[36]
• Claes Nobel Academic Scholarship Award, 2009^[37]
• National AXA Achievement Scholar, 2009^[38]
• Nestle Very Best in Youth Scholarship Award, 2009^[39]
• Tribeca Disruptive Innovator Award 2012^[40]

Leadership Awards

• National Jefferson Award, 2012^[14]
• World of Children Award, 2010^[41]
• State and National Winner of The Prudential Spirit of Community Scholarship Award, 2007^[42]
• Chosen as one of the Twenty Teens Who Will Change the World by Teen People Magazine, 2006^[43]
• Winner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award, 2006.^[44]

Leadership Positions

• Founder and Director, Children Helping Children 1998 - Ongoing^[45]
• Founder and President, The international Coalition of College Philanthropists 2009 - 2012 ^[46]
• Direction of Communications, Nestle Foundation 2010 - 2011^[47]

External links

• Jourdan Urbach Official Website

References