Short Bio

Joel Rust is a composer and sound artist who creates works across a variety of media. His recent works and works-in-progress include an opera, interactive installations, audiovisual ambient electronica, pieces for “Zoom choir,” and a song cycle about summoning angels. He has received commissions from artists and groups in the UK, USA, and France, and his works appear on recordings by Discantus, The Hermes Experiment, and the Choir of King’s College, London. Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Emory University, having completed his studies at NYU, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Harvard, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Long Bio

Joel Rust (b. 1989, London) creates music that encompasses kaleidoscopic textures, disintegrating mechanical systems, and a rich harmonic language that draws on spectralism, jazz, medieval polyphony, and much more. His works traverse a number of media, genres, and styles.

He has written two works for orchestra: Fall of the Rebel Angels was commissioned by the Melos Sinfonia, and was a finalist for the Zemlinsky Prize Orchestral Composition at the University of Cincinnati and the XIV Andrey Petrov Composition Competition, and nominated for the 2019 ISCM World Music Days by its New York chapter; Beyond the Heart was also commissioned by the Melos Sinfonia, and was selected for the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot Readings. A work for soprano and chamber orchestra, Mt. Norwottuck and a Prescription for Citalopram, was performed by the Cambridge University New Music Ensemble and the Outcry Orchestra.

Mt. Norwottuck marked the start of a series of collaborations with poet David Troupes; these include Nauset, a chamber opera which received performances in Cambridge and London; A Man Drags the Carcass of a Deer, a short video opera created as part of the European Union’s OperaVision program; and their ongoing project, The Conifers, a sci-fi opera about human relationships with the environment in a time of ecological destruction, which has been developed through a Jerwood Opera Writing Fellowship at Snape Maltings. Red as Blood, an opera scene depicting an excerpt from 13th-century Icelandic text Njal’s Saga, was performed in several venues across the UK by Helios Chamber Opera.

Recent commissions for smaller forces include Some Recitall, and contestation by the Peculier Offices, words, and dedes, of the 7 Heptarchicall Princes (mezzo-soprano and guitar, featuring a text by Elizabethan-era occultist John Dee) for the Bowers-Fader Duo, We’ll all be gone (a piano piece reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic) for Michael Beckerman, and Fossils (contralto and drone) for Jess Dandy at the Oxford Lieder Festival. Pack of Orders, a setting of poems by Soviet labor theorist Alexei Gastev for soprano, bass clarinet, harp and double bass, was commissioned by The Hermes Experiment who have performed it at numerous UK venues and for several BBC radio broadcasts; it also features on their award-winning debut album HERE WE ARE. Other groups and musicians that have performed his works include TAK, the International Contemporary Ensemble, ensemble mise-en, the PRISM Quartet, the Eblana String Trio, the Talea Ensemble, andPlay, Yarn|Wire, Ensemble Nikel, Jude Carlton, Laura Cocks, Jess Dandy, Marco Fusi, and Charlotte Mundy.

Electronic media are an increasingly important part of his work. Forest (an intertwining) was recently installated at the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States’ National Conference. CITIZEN, an interactive work about urban soundscapes, has been installed at the Sonorities Festival at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast) and at the SEAMUS National Conference. The Breach was developed during a residency at Fire Island National Seashore, and subsequently installed in their visitors’ center. Coruscation, an audiovisual work, has featured in concerts at Carneglie Mellon, UWisconsin-Milwaukee, and the Goa Short Film Festival. In this short Life and Everything are pieces for “Zoom choir,” using a web-based interface to co-ordinate voices singing together online.

Choral music was central to his musical upbringing, and this is reflected in his output. O radix Jesse was commissioned by the Choir of Grace Church, Newton (MA), and has been performed numerous times by the Choir of King’s College, London, also featuring on their CD Advent Carols from King’s College, London. O holy and ever-blessed Spirit, commissioned by The Chapel Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from Belfast Cathedral. sunt etenim pennae volucres mihi was commissioned by medieval music specialists Discantus to accompany a program of polyphony from the 11th-century Winchester Troper; this was performed at venues across Western Europe including Paris’s Musée de Cluny, broadcast on Radio France Musique and NPO Radio 4 (Netherlands), and released on their album Music for a King: The Winchester Troper.

Currently, he is Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition at Emory University. He recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at New York University, where he previously obtained his PhD with a dissertation on Edgard Varese, and studied composition with Louis Karchin and Jaime Oliver de la Rosa. During this time, he received the Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, the Patricia Dunn Lehrman Fellowship, and a Global Research Initiative Fellowship to NYU Shanghai, and was nominated by his department for an Outstanding Teaching Award. He received a MMus in Composition with Distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Julian Anderson, and a BA in Music with Double-starred First Class honours from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who also awarded him a Herchel Smith Scholarship to support a year of studies at Harvard University.

He is a member of the Emory University Gamelan Ensemble, and the Atlanta Improvisers Orchestra, and a former member of NYU’s viol consort, The Teares of the Muses. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Laura, his cat Betsy, and his growing collection of instruments—the most recent additions being a guqin and a banjo.