Jeremy Haladyna

Bio

Dr. Jeremy Haladyna’s  Mayan Cycle of musical pieces is receiving recognition due the highly unsual:

“All in all….a very thoroughly conceived sonic universe....The results are simply fascinating.”  - Frank J. Oteri, senior editor, newmusicbox.org

Ten trips to the Mayan region and an investigation of more than 30 years into Precolumbian thought have indelibly marked and changed the work of this U.S.-born composer. Haladyna’s Mayan Cycle now stretches to 33 pieces, including such titles as Zaquico’xol, El Llanto de Izamal, The Maya Curse Pedro de Alvarado, Pok-ta-Pok, 2012, The Oracle of 13 Sky, Copal, and the Jaguar Poems.

Jeremy, a former director of UC Santa Barbara’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music, holds prizes and academic qualifications from three countries. A laureate of the Lili Boulanger Prize and diplômé of the history-rich Schola Cantorum on Paris' Left Bank, he also holds advanced degrees from the University of Surrey (U.K.) and the University of California. He taught undergraduate composition at UCSB beginning in 1991, and was named to its permanent faculty in March, 2000. His own past teachers include William Kraft, Karl Korte, Eugene Kurtz, Jacques Charpentier, and Joseph Schwantner. He assumed the Directorship of ECM in 2003 upon the retirement of William Kraft.

Haladyna as performer has appeared on four labels (CRI, Albany, Neuma, innova) and in the multiple roles of pianist, organist…even turntable-ist.     

He has also taken the stage with the L.A. Philharmonic New Music Group on prepared piano and in ten of UCSB’s New Music Festivals and twelve PRIMAVERA festivals (both as conductor and soloist). 

In addition to active performing, Jeremy taught orchestration and was a senior tenured faculty member of the College of Creative Studies, UCSB. There, he was Executive Producer for five all-original Musicals, four of which have been televised on public and national channels since 2004.

As pianist, composer, conductor and organist, he has long been committed to the espousal of new music. His own music has been heard at Carnegie (Weill) Hall; King's College, London; St. John's Smith Square, London; South Bank Centre, London; the Monday Evening Concerts, Los Angeles; St. Paul's Cathedral, London; All Saints Church, London; BMIC, London; and the National Museum of Art, Mexico City. In December 1999 he premiered his The Vision Serpent at the Chopin Academy, Warsaw during a guest residency, also lecturing on the Mayan Cycle. In October, 2000 he was invited to present excerpts from the cycle as the subject of a colloquium at Kings College, London. In 2009 "Mayan Cycle" elements were brought to concerts in Instanbul, Turkey as part of a composer-conductor residency at MIAM. In 2009 an integral album release entirely from the "Mayan Cycle" appeared on innova. A sequel album likewise devoted to his work appeared on innova in 2012 entitled “Mayan Time/Mayan Tales,” again to favorable reviews. On radio, Haladyna’s recorded music has been featured over-the-air in Australia, Canada, WQXR’s Q2 (New York), Philadelphia, Chicago, and other major markets.