Heidi Jacob

Heidi Jacob’s music has been described by BBC Magazine as “compositions …of complex mesmerizing beauty,” by David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a musical adventurer,” and by Gramophone Magazine as music with “…..forthright expressiveness [that] exposes a multitude of stylistic associations.” A composer, cellist, and conductor, she is a graduate of both the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, with a D.M.A. in composition from Temple University. She has performed as a cellist throughout the United States and Europe and has recorded as a cellist and conductor for the Capstone Records, Albany Records, and Navona Records. 

In 2016, Jacob’s Winter Light for solo violin and string orchestra was performed by I Solisti Veneti, conducted by Claudio Scimone. Her work for string orchestra, Many in One was commissioned by First Editions Chamber Orchestra and premiered in spring of 2016. Her compositions have been performed at Tania León’s Composers Now Festival, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, by the Argento Ensemble, Earplay, Opus One: Berks Chamber Choir, Rutgers University’s Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art installation, Amphibian; New Music and Video HIArt Gallery, and The Stone in New York City. Instrumentalists who have performed her compositions include the Momenta String Quartet, the Hildegard Chamber Players, violinists Francesco d’orazio, Miranda Cuckson, and Barbara Govatos, cellists Jeffrey Solow, Michal Schmidt and Thalia Moore, flutists Mimi Stillman, Adeline Tomasone, Bart Feller, and Jeffrey Khaner, pianists Charles Abramovic, Marcantonio Barone, Jonathan Levin and Linda Yim, bassoonist Pascal Gallois and by Temple University’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. Her work for piano, Regard a Schubert: a Fantasy Impromptu, was a prizewinner in the International Alliance for Women in Music Competition. Jacob’s song cycle Beginning Again, can be heard on L’Ensemble’s album Poetry into Song. A recording of her compositions, Beneath Winter Light,  produced by PARMA Records, was released in January 2015. Her composition, untouched by morning and untouched by night, is included on the PARMA Records album INTERSECTIONS and a recording with the Kühn Choir of Prague of her work for SATB Chorus, Solo Soprano and Narrator, was just released by PARMA records on their album VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL IV. 

Jacob’s Scherzo for flute and marimba was premiered by Amélie Debecq and Damien Delvaux at Festival  Osmose in Evere, Belgium and her Suite for Flute and Piano was premiered at Penn State by Mimi Stillman and Charles Abramovic. Her Endless War for harpsichord and narrator was premiered by Joyce Lindorff, Harpsichord at Temple University’s Keyboard Festival. Her work for solo piano, …but time will tell… was performed at The Keyboard in the 21st Century, an international conference in Hong Kong by Linda Yim. In August 2020, her Many in One, for string orchestra was performed by the Moravian Philharmonic and her Winter Light for Violin and Piano, was performed by Network for New Music on a livestream, April 2021. Her Resonance of Emerald for Woodwind Quintet was premiered at Haverford College, Fall 2021. 

The music Jacob co-wrote with Charles Abramovic for the documentary film My Sister Hali, won an International Independent Film Gold Winner Award for Original Score and a bronze award by the Latitude Film Awards at the UK International Festival. Docs without Borders awarded the film an Exceptional Merit Award for the “poetic music by Charles Abramovic, Heidi Jacob, Jeffrey Solow.”