Jason Eckardt (b. 1971) played guitar in rock and jazz bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern, he immediately devoted himself to composition. Since then, his music has been influenced by his interests in perceptual complexity, performance virtuosity, and self-organizing processes in the natural world. He has been recognized through commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations, the Guggenheim Museum, the Oberlin Conservatory, and percussionist Evelyn Glennie; fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Fondation Royaumont, the MacDowell and Millay Colonies, the Fritz Reiner Center, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust; and awards from the League/ISCM, Deutschen Musikrat-Stadt Wesel, ASCAP, the University of Illinois, and Columbia University. Eckardt's music has been performed on four continents at festivals including IRCAM-Resonances, Darmstadt, the ISCM World Music Days, Voix Nouvelles, Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Musica Nova Sofia, Currents in Musical Thought-Seoul, and the International Bartók Festival. An active promoter of new music, Eckardt is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Ensemble 21, the contemporary music group in New York City. Recordings of Eckardt's works have been released by CRI, Helicon, and Metier; a portrait CD titled Out of Chaos is available from Mode. He is currently a Guggenheim Fellow and lives in New York with his wife, pianist Marilyn Nonken.