Jeff Weston, Music Theory Teacher, Composition Teacher, & String Bass Teacher:
Jeff Weston is a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory and a Ph.D. Certificate recipient in Cultural Studies with an emphasis in Sound Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. A passionate music educator, he has held teaching positions and teaching artist positions at the University of Pittsburgh, Haugland Learning Center for Autism, the Toledo School for the Arts, and the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art. For his work in education, Weston was acknowledged as a finalist for the University of Pittsburgh's Elizabeth Baranger Teaching Award.
Utilizing the concept of task, Weston's music is focused upon questioning the banal and habitual. Through the explorations of balance, failure, repetition, temporality, physicality and space, he identifies expressivity in the common and reoccurring.Weston has garnered performances and fellowships at such venues as the IRCAM Centre Pompidou, Carnegie Museum of Art, IMPULS Festival, International Young Composers’ Forum, Vox Novus’ Composers Voice Series, Walden School Artist Residency, Contagious Sounds Series, and Radio France. Recent interpreters of his music have included the JACK Quartet (USA), Ensemble Linea (France), Wet Ink Ensemble (USA), H2 Quartet (USA), Amernet Quartet (USA), Orkest de Erepreijs (Netherlands), and pianist Michiko Saiki (USA/Germany).
As a string bassist, Weston has served as principal bass of the University of Pittsburgh Orchestra, Bowling Green State University Philharmonic, Perrysburg Orchestra, Heidelberg University Orchestra, and the Luther College Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. As a contemporary music specialist, he is a founding member of the Color Field Music Ensemble, has been featured at the Bowling Green New Music Festival, and has premiered works by Robert Honstein, Christopher Dietz, Andrew Martin Smith, and others. He is currently on faculty at the University of Pittsburgh where he teaches music theory and fundamentals of music.
Recent work has included a site-specific sound installation for the 2017 IMPULS Festival in the city of Graz, Austria and a 108 day evolving sound installation commissioned by the Carnegie Museum of Art.