Jason Eckardt (born 17 May 1971 in Princeton, New Jersey) is an American composer. He began his musical life playing guitar in heavy metal and jazz bands and abruptly moved to composing after discovering the music of Anton Webern.
Atonal and microtonal harmony, intricate rhythms, highly polyphonic textures and large-scale transformational processes[2] are prevalent in Eckardt’s compositions. Allan Kozinn of The New York Times wrote, “[Eckardt’s] music celebrates harmonic prickliness, rhythmic complexity and a density of ideas.”[3] Though Eckardt has been associated with the New Complexity movement, he is also influenced by American composers Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter.[4]

Major works include After Serra (2000) for chamber ensemble, Tongues (2001) for soprano and chamber ensemble, Reul na Coille (2002) for percussion and orchestra, Trespass (2005) for piano and chamber orchestra and the Undersong cycle (2002–2008), a series of four chamber works (A way [tracing], 16, Aperture, The Distance (This)) that, when played together without pause, form a concert-length supercomposition.

Some of Eckardt's compositions are inspired by extramusical subjects, such as extraordinary rendition (Rendition), the sculptures of Richard Serra (After Serra),[5][6] W.S. Merwin's poem "Echoes" (Echoes' White Veil)[7] and George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address (16).[8] Subject, a work for string quartet, uses special concert lighting to recreate the conditions used to interrogate military detainees.[9] Eckardt has also written about the influence of research in cognitive psychology on his compositional techniques.[10]

Eckardt has received commissions for his work from several major institutions and performers including Carnegie Hall,[11] Tanglewood,[12] the Koussevitzky Foundation (1999, 2011),[13] the Guggenheim Museum, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (1996, 2008),[14] Chamber Music America,[15] the New York State Music Fund, Meet the Composer,[16] the Oberlin Conservatory and percussionist Evelyn Glennie.[17] His works have been programmed internationally by festivals including the Festival d'Automne a Paris, IRCAM-Resonances, ISCM World Music Days (1999, 2000), Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Musikhost, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, New Consortium, International Review of Contemporary Music, Festival of New American Music and the International Bartok Festival. Eckardt’s catalog is published by Carl Fischer Music.[
Eckardt has taught composition, theory and musicology at Columbia University, the Oberlin Conservatory, New York University, the University of Illinois, Rutgers University and Northwestern University. He is also the co-founder of Ensemble 21, the contemporary music chamber ensemble based in New York City. He is currently Associate Professor of composition at City University of New York’s Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and Graduate Center.
In 2004, Eckardt was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.[19] Eckardt has also earned fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Fondation Royaumont, the MacDowell and Millay Colonies, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music, the Composers Conference at Wellesley, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. Eckardt’s compositions have received awards from the League of Composers/ISCM (National Prize), Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel (Symposium NRW Prize), ASCAP (Morton Gould Award), the University of Illinois (Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award) and Columbia University (Rapoport Prize).
Eckardt attended Berklee College of Music, first as a guitar performance major before switching to composition, eventually earning a BA (1992). He continued his studies at Columbia University, principally with Jonathan Kramer, and earned MA (1994) and DMA (1998) degrees. He attended masterclasses with Milton Babbitt, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.