Hailed as "extremely moving" by New Music Box and "especially sweet" by the Austin American Statesman, the music of Joel Love (b. 1982) explores an eclectic mix of genres, from short video pieces to works for chamber and large ensembles.

Joel’s works have been performed by a number of large and small ensembles, exhibited at art galleries, and screened at theaters and festivals around the world. Most recently, Solace: A Lyric Concerto has been performed many times by wind ensembles throughout the United States, including the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and The US Air Force Band in D.C., among others, and has been heard on international stages in Australia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and at the 2023 Festival Internacional de Saxofone de Palmela in Portugal. Recently, Joel was commissioned by the American Bandmaster’s Association to write In the Offing for wind ensemble, which he composed during his 2020-2021 Copland Residency Award.

As lover of popular music and film, Joel also enjoys writing for commercial music projects and creating arrangements and has composed music for several films and art installations, incidental music for a variety of settings, and also arranged for several ensembles. To close last year’s Library of Congress’ Stradivari Anniversary Concert, the Miró Quartet used Joel’s arrangement of “Silent Night” as a “sweetly turned encore” (WaPo). While finishing his doctorate, Joel was commissioned to write a work for string quartet, Lightscape, to accompany the opening of famed light artist James Turrell's Austin, TX Skyspace, The Color Inside. The Houston Chronicle commented that it "evocatively captures the emotion of The Color Inside."

Joel completed his D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and holds degrees from The University of Houston's Moores School of Music (M.Music) and Lamar University’s Mary Morgan Department of Music (B.Music). He lives with his wife Amelia and son Dean in Springfield, MO, where he holds a full-time Assistant Professor of Music post at Missouri State University.

Fair Winds and Following Seas

Nicki Roman, soprano saxophone; Casey Dierlam Tse, piano

Snows Always Melts

 

On Joy, On Sorrow

On Joy, On Sorrow (Running Time: 5:32) is a Synched Video that attempts to abstractly convey the interdependent relationship of two disparate emotions. This work is personal in nature and stems from observing events in life that have led to recognizing the conceptual threads that run between Joy and Sorrow. Whether that is in the gain and loss that comes with age, or our current political and economic climate, Joy and Sorrow are intrinsically tied to one another. To quote the Lebanese Poet Kahlil Gibran, “Your Joy is your Sorrow unmasked.” The two videos are intended to be experienced as having a dialog with one another with audio and video components, at times, emphasizing one side over the other and at other times seamlessly meshed together in a uniform dance. The fluid nature of this work contains very little concrete imagery and relies heavily upon the viewer’s imagination to complete the piece. Although, created to be viewed on two screens, this piece may be presented as a single channel video. The audio component is an original musical score created in collaboration with Composer Joel Love for this piece.

If you would like to enquire about getting a score or are considering a commission, please use the form below. You may also use this form to ask me a question about a work.