About

My name is Jason Taurins, and I am a graduate of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, where I earned a Bachelor of Music in Education in 2015. My trumpet teachers were Dr. Stephen Jones and Scott Thornburg. I am also a freelance composer with an interest in writing for young band students, chamber music, and chamber brass music. I am currently based in southern Arizona, where I teach middle and high school band, choir, and orchestra. I am also a graduate student at the University of Florida, pursuing my Master of Music in Music Education degree.

In my time at WMU, I studied composition with Dr. Lisa Coons and Dr. Richard Adams. I participated in masterclasses and took lessons from composers such as John Mackey and Dr. Scott Boerma. I worked with several other composers during my time at WMU, including Brian Balmages, Robert Sheldon, Quincy Hilliard, Phillip Sparke, Larry Clark, Jack Stamp, Sean O’Loughlin, and Steven Bryant. My music has been frequently performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

My music has been recorded by numerous artists, including Dr. Angela Collier-Reynolds (flute) and Patrick Reynolds (trombone); Olivia Jageurs (harp) and Ray Hearne (tuba); Dr. David Bohn (keyboards); Lindsey Goodman (flute); Robin Meiksins (flute); and Iwona Glinka (flute). You can hear my music on the labels Navona Records and Phasma-Music.

As an avid musical miniaturist, I also created the Minute of Music Project to support new music for trumpet, and to promote composers. I have also written for the project, and several other miniaturist groups.

In what little spare time I do have, I enjoy golfing, learning languages (I’m currently working on Esperanto, German, and Spanish), and streaming movies and TV.

My music is characterized by a preference for clarity of texture and a unique melodic style. My music is acoustic, eclectic, diverse, post-modern, and I try to avoid being pretentious. I am often inspired by great works of literature and poetry, and I try to convey the melodic and rhythmic qualities of words and their individual letters in my music (sometimes using the crypto-serial technique of Neal Endicott). I have a love for odd and dissonant sounds, such as the interval of a tritone and quartal harmony. As such, my music often modulates to radically unrelated keys. I am comfortable writing in a variety of styles.

What is Klangfarbenmelodien Music? I am affiliated with ASCAP both as a composer and a publisher (because I am self-published). I wanted to choose a more interesting publisher name than “Jason Taurins Music,” so I chose a fun word. “Klangfarbenmelodien” is a German word which means “tone color melody” or “timbre melody.” It refers to the compositional technique of splitting a melody between several instruments, and is the musical equivalent of pointillism.