Composer David Jason Snow (b. 1954) received his professional musical training at the Eastman School of Music (1972-1976) where he studied with Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, and Samuel Adler, and at the Yale School of Music (1976-1978) where he was a student of Jacob Druckman. While at Eastman, he was awarded the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in composition (1974), the McCurdy Prize (1975), and the Howard Hanson Prize (1976), and at Yale he received the Frances E. Osborne Kellogg Prize (1978). Other honors include BMI Student Composer Awards (1977, 1979), Annapolis Fine Arts Foundation Composition Prizes (1981, 1983, 1984, 1985), an ASCAP Foundation Grant (1981), a National Association of Composers/USA Composition Prize (1981), a National Federation of Music Clubs Composition Prize (1981), National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowships (1982, 1985), a Meet the Composer Grant (1983), and Maryland State Arts Council Grants (1992, 1997). Snow has been awarded artist residencies at Yaddo (1981, 2000) and Millay Arts (2004), and commissions from the College Band Directors National Association Commission (1982) and the Renee B. Fisher Foundation (1997).
Among the organizations that have presented Snow's work in concert are the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), the New Juilliard Ensemble (Museum of Modern Art, New York), the American Brass Quintet (John F. Kennedy Center, Washington, DC), the Yale Contemporary Ensemble (Sprague Hall, New Haven), the Yale University Band (Woolsey Hall, New Haven), the Harvard Wind Ensemble (Sanders Theater, Cambridge), and the Banda Municipal de Bilbao (Euskalduna Palace, Bilbao).
Except where noted, the scores and recordings listed on this page are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Woodwinds • Brass • Strings • Keyboards • Percussion • Mixed ensembles • Large ensembles • Songs with piano • Songs with instrumental ensemble • Choral music • DADA-musique • Stage work • Audio fixed media • Video fixed media
(including solos, solos with piano, solos with electronics, and ensembles with piano)
Last update: November 1, 2023
DADA-musique
Stage work
Audio fixed media
Audio files (16-bit 44.1kHz stereo FLAC) for streaming or download, organized into 10 series:
SERIES 1: ALBUM DER KLAVIATURMONSTRASITÄTEN • ALBUM DES MONSTRUOSITÉS DU CLAVIER • ALBUM OF KEYBOARD MONSTROSITIES Les 5000 doigts du Docteur T: étude de piano robotique (01:00) A shaynem dank dir im pupik (08:52) A baker's tale. 1. La promenade du pâtissier (03:20) A baker's tale. 2. Méditations à la croissance spirituel (03:43) A baker's tale. 3. Hymne au village céleste; 4. Dénouement (03:29) Etude after Mondrian (04:55) Fantasia on a rhapsody by Rachmaninoff on a theme by Paganini (02:15) Fugue from Wittgenstein revisited (01:41) Galop from Parlour music (03:55) The modern harpsichord COMMENTARY AUDIO (04:25) Pavane and galliard (04:58) Passacaglia en unisono (03:32) Three studies for two Disklaviers. 1. Onde sulla spiaggia (04:06) Three studies for two Disklaviers. 2. Raging libido (03:18) Three studies for two Disklaviers. 3. DefRag (02:05) The velvet gentleman: ballet indigeste (24:28)
SERIES 3: ASTRAL BAGGAGE (HEAD TRIPS FOR LUFTKINDER) Pavane (01:47) Did you want sprouts on that? (04:28) Into the cosmic mandala (05:37) Goodnight, moon (words by M.W. Brown) (02:28) No easy death (04:36) Galliard (02:51) Candybox (04:02) Traitées au fromage (08:24) Dance of the Red Tiger Devil (09:02) Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus (04:58) Yo GABA GABA (08:44) Zippy's New Age dance (12:02) Pavane (01:39) Deep space radio (07:55) Galliard (02:45) Kopfausflug für ein Luftkind (12:03) A night in Jakarta (10:53) Toute certitude se termine par la mort (02:28) Die Würfel sind gefallen: variations on Mozart's Musical Dice Game, K. 516f (01:57) Shlof mayn kind, mayn treyst mayn sheyner (5:68)
SERIES 5: AUDIBLE DADA (STUDIES IN KULTURVERNEINGUNG), VOLUME 2 Adventures in necromusicology, with your host Charles Arthur Rawlings (episodes 1-2) (11:34) The diagnostic and statistical manual of musical disorders COMMENTARY AUDIO (23:31) Organ Leroy at his organ... again (27:28) The quantum fields COMMENTARY AUDIO (08:36) Sumptuous sinews COMMENTARY AUDIO (29:59) Music from Sumptuous sinews (24:34) This is only a test (09:54)
SERIES 6: THE AUDIBLE ENVIRONMENT Brooklyn underground (7:51) Das Lied von der Magnetosphäre (7:56) Manahatta: mythic city (12:00) The Mozart effect (7:14) Set sail for the heliopause! (8:02) The sound of one shoe dropping (7:46) Tuning into, situating within (13:51)
SERIES 7: ORCHESTRAL SELECTIONS FROM MARRIAGE AT WORK, A MUSICAL COMEDY
Book and lyrics by Paul Franklin Stregevsky
Music by Paul Franklin Stregevsky and David Jason Snow
Orchestrations by David Jason SnowOverture (03:59) Life on the fringe (05:03) Hineni! (04:52) Marriage is work (02:20) Eight weeks (03:17) The rebbe says (06:48) Someone just like me (03:16) A world of many colors (02:59) Marriage at work (05:36) Prelude to Act two (04:51) When I was one (04:53) The ways I would tell you (05:24) Going through the motions (02:56) Pass it on (04:31) The sins on me (03:02) Something strange (05:43) Forty days, forty years (04:22) Eight weeks/A world of many colors (reprise) (02:31) Future imperfect (03:28)
SERIES 8: POPULAR MUSIC AND ITS DISCONTENTS Bad girls (4:55) Bright shiny thingy (2:07) Broadway reject (2:51) But they seemed like such nice folks (3:15) Depilação brasileira (O samba da apropriação cultural) (3:52) Disco plotz (2:30) The German Roll (In memoriam Betty Rowland) (2:05) Goodbye, Columbus (4:45) Hommage à l'Afrique (2:10) I think you're a jerk (2:59) I'm getting sick over you (words by Peter Kougasian) (2:13) Jailbait (3:44) Laissez les bons temps saigner (1:48) Leila (2:55) Let's eat (words by the Firesign Theatre) (4:17) La mia famiglia (8:14) My little umbrella (1:49) Nice guys finish last (4:22) Righteous motherfucker (2:57) Some serious shit (6:27) Stuck together (words by Peter Kougasian) (3:55) Theme from A summer STD infection (1:48)
SERIES 9: THIS, TOO, IS MUSIC Beat me mama, 29 to the bar (5:47) Campane dell'inferno (4:00) Campane dell'inferno (carillon version) (4:15) Der verbannte Alberich (“Raus, raus, du abgesagter Kriecher!”)(9:00) Heavy metal hebop (5:08) It's the process, not the product (10:53) Notes from underground (35:47) Prayer (3:54) Squeeze me mama, 29 to the bar (5:51) St. Modestus blesses the AK47s (1:53) The sum of all differences COMMENTARY AUDIO (3:04) Suono grafica (6:04) Terminal lucidity (7:17) This too is music (5:23) Three etudes for imaginary harp (10:57) Trumpet nigun: In memoriam Louis Bannet (4:41) Wave dynamics (4:54)
SERIES 10: VEX AMERICANA Beat me mama, 29 to the bar, 23 to the octave (5:48) La beaute sera CONVULSIVE ou ne sera pas (12:11) Bernie's gig, live at the Alka-Hole (5:48) Fun zaydeleh's lied buch (Fred DeChristofaro on bass clarinet, flute, alto sax) (10:22) Hommage à Abdullah Ibrahim (20:55) In the Middle Ages (words by E. Ewazen, C. Kollgaard, D. Snow) (3:19) The Internationale (composed by Pierre Chrétien Degeyter) (0:51) Man with hammer: motion study on a sculpture by Peter Grippe (2:06) Nukular pigdance (3:21) Parlour music (14:36) Santa's entrance into Valhalla (3:49) Slippery when wet (4:14) Swarm (4:00) That old sad song (1983) (3:38) Le tombeau de Maynard G. Krebs COMMENTARY AUDIO (3:55) Vex americana COMMENTARY AUDIO EXCERPTS (06:33) Wittgenstein revisited (13:33) Bride of Wittgenstein: Classical miasma (7:11) Video fixed media
8-bit pseudo-random godhead generator (5:44) Beat me, mama, 29 to the bar (3:33) Crazytown (3:22) Ditch Plains (6:15) Grande liturgie situationniste (5:38) I scare myself (8:23) Man with hammer: motion study on a sculpture by Peter Grippe (2:06) Mommy, wipe me! (1:45) Optimal harmonic fidelity control (5:03) Scherzo no. 9 (6:05) Time and the machine (10:33) Wake me when we get there (4:59)