Jeffrey Young is a violinist, composer, and electronic musician based in Philadelphia, PA who specializes in experimental, rock, and classical music. A native of Brooklyn, NY, Jeffrey spent over a decade as a professional musician in the New York City music scene, where he worked as a freelance violinist and developed a practice of creating music through a combination of improvisation and composition, including work developed collaboratively with his experimental classical ensemble thingNY and others. He has toured the US, Europe, and China, as a solo artist and with thingNY, the World/Inferno Friendship Society, LUCERNE FESTIVAL Young Performance, Dykes & Young, and others. He has been covered by the NY Times and Washington Post, has been featured on labels including Innova, Alternative Tentacles, Tzadik, and Gold Bolus, and has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, the Rachael Ray show, and more.
In addition, Jeffrey is a William and Hannah Penn Fellow working in the Policy Office at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and in 2023, he completed a Master of City and Regional Planning degree at the Bloustein School at Rutgers University.
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Artist Statement
I am a classically trained violinist and composer who seeks to create fresh, approachable, complex, socially relevant art. While I enjoy participating in projects that feature me as either a creator or performer, I am most excited when I can fill both roles simultaneously, as a composer-performer. Composer-performer projects usually take one of two forms for me: solo projects where I use the software Ableton Live to expand my instrumental and vocal sonic palette as well as my capacity to layer sound, and projects where I collaborate with other performing artists to devise a structure from the ground up and perform it together. I collaborate across media and genres, to stimulate myself artistically and to create a work more rich and intricate than I could on my own. I aim to work in different locations and across cultures, to satisfy my love of exploration, to be inspired by different contexts, and to make connections across global networks.
Listen to an interview with Jeffrey Young on Insight With Beth Ruyak on Capital Public Radio, Sacramento, CA, April 20, 2015
Press for Jeffrey Young
“Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto’s ‘Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office …’ The verbose quality of this short opera with a long title harkens back to other textually dense pieces, like Ashley’s…But this micro-opera is more antic than anything written by [Robert Ashley].”
–A Grand History of Small Operas by Seth Colter Walls in The New York Times, June 12, 2020
“Der engagierte Musiker, Komponist, Performer und Sänger krempelt die Musikwelt um und stellt die kreativen Elemente, die er darin findet, in den Vordergrund.” (English translation: “The committed musician, composer, performer and singer turns the music world upside down and puts the creative elements that he finds in it in the foreground.”)
-Verstehen oder nicht verstehen: Jeffrey Young, USA | Musik, Komposition (St.A.i.R 2019), profile of Jeffrey Young on the Land Steiermark Department of Culture website, late 2019
“June 8 was the busiest day for the Re:Sound Festival, with three concerts around the city…the duo Dykes & Young set a high bar for the acts that would follow over the course of the day.”
–Re:Sound Festival at Praxis Fiber Workshop and Bop Stop (June 8) by Jarrett Hoffman in clevelandclassical.com, June 24, 2019
“Young is a violinist from Brooklyn who describes his style as ‘classical ambient music.’ In addition to his violin, he uses his laptop to mix his music, creating a contemporary classical sound with a strong electronic component…At times, his songs fluctuated from the full-bodied and classical sounds of the violin, to what can only be described as what knives would sound like if they could sing. Young’s music, with titles like ‘Jeffrey Young’s Magical Kingdom of Dust’ and ‘Great Galaxy, What’s In You,’ evokes a sense that this is what it would sound like if Willy Wonka devoted himself to music instead of interior design.”
–Jeffrey Young Takes the Stage by Johanna Armstrong in the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, March 29, 2019
“Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto’s new album on Gold Bolus Recordings, Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment: an opera by Paul Pinto and Jeffrey Young, is a haunting and humorous reflection on the turbulent nature of lives in America today…the dramatic political parody maintains a sense of urgency, even through its lighter moments.”
–“Haunting and Humorous:” Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto’s …Patriots… by Alyssa Kayser-Hirsh in I Care If You Listen, August 16, 2018
“Before the performance, [Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto] solicited written questions from the audience, which they humorously and poignantly answered…”
–Omaha Under the Radar 2018: New Music Meets Midwestern Sensibility by Megan Ihnen in I Care If You Listen, August 9, 2018
“The vocalist Paul Pinto…has, along with the violinist Jeffrey Young, recently released a jointly composed 25-minute opera…After satirizing the forced bonhomie of electioneering — and maybe self-promotion in general — the opera’s chattering “Intro” casts a critical eye at individual expressions of taste that attempt to claim the status of political commitments…”
–Wagner Gets the Blues: The Week in Classical Music, by Seth Colter Walls in The New York Times, July 27, 2018
“Created in 2011, ‘…Patriots, Run for Public Office…’ is perhaps one of the most relevant contemporary operas of the 21st Century, and is worth your undivided attention…[the album] has potential appeals beyond those of just the new and experimental music community. It is more than just an opera about politics, it is about humanity and our future world. Pinto and Young…have combined the artistic, historic, and economic to create a work that truly speaks (or sings) to us all.”
–IN REVIEW: “PATRIOTS…” AN OPERA BY PAUL PINTO AND JEFFREY YOUNG by Austin Franklin in the Sybaritic Singer, July 26, 2018
“Brooklyn civil and housing court judges and clerks showed their appreciation for their staff by throwing a holiday party…The party began with music from Jeffrey Young on violin and Scott Stein on keyboard…”
–Brooklyn Civil Court hosts holiday party as appreciation for staff by Paul Frangipane in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 19, 2017
“Violinist Jeffrey Young‘s shivery cadenzas and the occasional creepy glissando enhance the suspense…”
–ThingNY Debuts a Blackly Amusing, Sonically Rich Reflection on Hurricane Sandy in Lucid Culture, September 25, 2015
“Leading the pack of violinists will be Jeffrey Young, an experimental violinist, composer, and laptop musician from Brooklyn…
–Jeffrey Young Brings a Flurry of Violins to Exploded View by Heather Hoch in the Tucson Weekly, April 7, 2015
“At New York Live Arts in Chelsea on Thursday, the tension was kept high by Jeffrey Young’s high-modernist score, played live by the composer on violin and three other musicians on bass, viola and bass clarinet. With slashing dissonances, melting chords and bits of buzzing that might have been programmatically titled ‘The Mosquito,’ the music keeps signaling distress, even when Mr. Young’s electronics aren’t adding rumbles from an earthquake.
As a score to the film, ‘Peach Blossom Weeps Tears of Blood,’ a melodrama about love across feudal class lines, the music is fatalistic, foreshadowing tragedy at every moment. That suits [choreographer RoseAnne] Spradlin’s sensibility.”
–Threaded Through With Menace by Brian Seibert in The New York Times, October 14, 2014
“…[Valerie Kuehne] played a roaring solo cello piece that became surprisingly lyrical, as violinist Jeffrey Young strolled in through the audience…”
–A Classic Small Beast Reunion of Sorts in Lucid Culture, January 9, 2013
“One particularly amusing exchange involved the question of a “single American identity”, which Young answered affirmatively from the point of view of a “single American…Overall, it was a good performance and well worth the trip over to Berkeley on a weeknight. And I don’t think this is the last time we will hear from our newest musical friends from New York.”
–DANIEL POPSICLE VS. BROOKLYN, SUBTERRANEAN ARTHOUSE in Catsynth, August 23, 2011
Extended bio
Jeffrey Young is a composer and violinist from Brooklyn, NY who specializes in experimental, rock, and classical music, including music he performs with the software Ableton Live. He is currently based in Philadelphia, PA.
Highlights from the past several years include three brand new projects created with thingNY during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-2021, the premiere in Vienna and Graz of the 50-minute music-theatre piece A History of Characters with members of Schallfeld Ensemble, the premiere tours of Jeffrey’s duos Dykes & Young and Wise & Young and the premiere performances of his duo Picard & Picard, multiple US tours and a record release with cabaret-punk band The World/Inferno Friendship Society, a US album release tour with Paul Pinto of their duo experimental opera …Patriots…, a tour in Switzerland and Luxembourg of the new show for children NOMOZART through the LUCERNE FESTIVAL Young Performance program, performances in Switzerland, Germany, and Brooklyn with LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI, the premiere tour and recording session with thingNY of a commission by Rick Burkhardt, a performance and workshop at the inaugural Creative Ability Development conference in Chicago, an installation by thingNY at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in New York with funding from New Music USA, development of a new piece by thingNY and experimental theater company Orange Theatre of Phoenix with funding from The Network of Ensemble Theaters, two monthlong tours with Valerie Kuehne and the Wasps Nests, Jeffrey’s performance of his own music with theater group stringsaTTached at the Festspiele Zürich festival in Switzerland, and a 13-show solo tour through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada as well as a solo mini-tour to Germany and Poland. In March 2019, Jeffrey spent two and a half weeks at a solo residency at the New York Mills Cultural Center in New York Mills, Minnesota, and in September-October 2019, he spent two months as Styria-Artist-in-Residence in the city of Graz, Austria. With thingNY, Jeffrey has collaboratively composed and performed multiple experimental operas, through the support of grants from the Aaron Copland Fund, the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Queens Council on the Arts. He performed under the direction of Pierre Boulez and other leaders of the European avant-garde during four summers at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland. He has twice toured China as an orchestral musician, and in addition to the groups above he has also toured the U.S. and Canada with indie rock band Food Will Win the War, psychedelic folk band Manson Family Picnic, minimalist chamber-rock band Slow Six, and Pogues cover band Streams of Whiskey.
Jeffrey has performed in many of the world’s great halls, including Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern, Philharmonie Essen, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and more. He has been covered by the NY Times and Washington Post. He has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Rachael Ray Show, and he has been featured on over 50 albums, on labels including Innova, Alternative Tentacles, Tzadik, and Gold Bolus, and in genres including classical and contemporary music, rock, singer-songwriter, hip-hop, kids songs, and more. Jeffrey graduated with a Bachelor of Music in violin and composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2007.
Outside of music, Jeffrey is currently working for two years as a William and Hannah Penn Fellow in the Policy Office of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The William and Hannah Penn Fellowship is a competitive program run by the state government of Pennsylvania that places recent advanced degree recipients in state agencies. In May of 2023, Jeffrey completed a Master of City and Regional Planning degree at the Bloustein School at Rutgers University. At Bloustein, he received Academic Honors and the Mortensen/Voorhees Award for Achievement in Transportation Studies, an annual award given to the highest achieving student with a concentration in transportation at the Bloustein School. From 2022-23, he was an Eagleton Institute of Politics Graduate Fellow, in which role he worked for the New Jersey Senate Majority Office. In 2022, he completed an internship at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, where he researched the state of the practice of Metropolitan Planning Organization long-range transportation planning.