About
Composer / Dramatist
Education
Columbia University, Bachelor's of Arts:
Music Composition & Computer Science
Notable Performance Venues
The DiMenna Center (Manhattan, New York City)
National Sawdust (Brooklyn, New York City)
Cankarjev Dom (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Hidden Valley: Institute of the Arts (Carmel Valley, California)
Chiesa di San Giuseppe (Alba, Italy)
Lorimer Chapel (Waterville, Maine)
Trinity Episcopal Church (Seattle, Washington)
Musical Theatre Directing Roles
In the Heights (Music Director, Columbia Musical Theatre Society)
Fun Home (Asst. Music Director, Barnard-Columbia Theatre Department)
Fame (Asst. Music Director, CMTS)
The Varsity Show (Asst. Rehearsal Pianist)
Honors
2022, Music Broadcast on Performance Today to National US Radio
2022 TEMPO Ensemble Call for Scores Winner
2021 New Musicals Inc. Award for New Musical Theatre Work
2020 Commission from Peter Frajola, Oregon Symphony Concertmaster
2019 Robert Scandrett Opus 7 Award for Best Choral Composition
Artist Biography
A genre-blending composer-dramatist based in Manhattan, James Pecore loves telling stories with music, and the magic that art can create between us. His favorite flowers are white Easter lilies, and his favorite scent, maple butter.
As a musician, James Pecore uses musical theatre and chamber music to blend various genres, stories, and traditions into one coherent piece, collaborating with such artists as The NY Youth Symphony, Broadway actors Roe Hartrampf and Heath Saunders, OperaAmerica vocal sextet Ekmeles, and Slovenian music ensemble inštitut .abeceda.
The son of a carpenter and a nurse, as well as the little brother of an art historian, Pecore sees music as a way of walking together with both our past and our future. As an artistic assistant with skills in development and client-facing work, Pecore has worked in the lutherie shop of Reed-Yeboah Fine Violins, with The Two-Time GRAMMY-Winning Attacca Quartet, and with The Cecilia Chorus of New York.
As a composer, James Pecore has studied Music Composition and Orchestration at Columbia University with Peter Susser, with Jeffrey Milarsky, with Georg Friedrich Haas, and with other artists. Pecore has also studied musical theatre with Lisa Rothe and Anna Jacobs, playwriting with Andy Bragen, and literary analysis with Erik Gray.
Fractured yet tactfully arranged together, James Pecore composes music as a mosaic—beauty coalescing out of brokenness—purpose, out of pain.
Mentors
Mr. Domenic Salerni (Violinist, the GRAMMY-Winning Attacca Quartet)
Ms. Anna Jacobs (Musical Theatre Songwriter, NYU & NYYS)
Mr. Georg Friedrich Haas (Columbia University, Composition Faculty)
Mr. Peter Susser (Columbia University, Theory Faculty)
Mr. Nick DiBerardino (Curtis Institute of Music, Faculty)
Dr. Ira Taxin (The Juilliard School, DMA and Faculty)
Dr. Jordan Kuspa (Yale School of Music, DMA)
Dr. Wang Jie (New York University, DMA)
Internships
The GRAMMY-Winning Attacca Quartet (SONY)
The Windmill Factory (Brooklyn, NYC)
Collaborators
Violinist Cindy Wu (2022 Emerging Composer's Intensive)
The Aizuri Quartet (NYYS 2021-2022)
Institût .abeceda (2022 Composer in Residence)
The New York Youth Symphony (2020-2022 Composer Fellow)
The Estrella Consort (Alba Music Festival 2022)
Broadway Actors Heath Saunders and Roe Hartrampf (NYYS 2021)
Violinist Grace Huh & Cellist Soomin Kim (Columbia-Juilliard, Spring 2022)
Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble (Fall 2021)
Hub New Music (Summer 2021)
Beo String Quartet (Summer 2021)
Violinist Peter Frajola (Oregon Symphony Concertmaster)
etc...
