Derek M Jenkins

Derek M. Jenkins

Biography

Derek M. Jenkins (b. 1986, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is an American composer with a particular interest in music for wind ensemble and its various subsets.
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His music has been performed throughout the U.S., Europe and in Canada with select performances include those by the U.S. Army Materiel Command Band, the Florida State Wind Orchestra, the UMKC, Arizona State, Iowa State, and Bethel College Wind Ensembles, the Tri-State Wind Symphony, the Washington Square Winds, the Carinthia and Saxophilia Saxophone Quartets, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie, and saxophonists Randall Hall, Gilbert Sabitzer, and Joseph Wytko. In 2012, Jenkins's wind ensemble piece Eosphorus: The Morning Star was selected as a winner of the National Band Association's Young Composer Mentor Project. Jenkins has received recognition from MACRO, ASCAP, the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award Foundation, and at conferences and festivals across the U.S. and abroad. He has received commissions from the University of Tennessee-Martin Wind Ensemble, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble, the Bethel College Wind Ensemble and Concert Choir, the Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School Concert Band [Dubuque, IA], and various individuals throughout the country.

Jenkins is currently studying at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (DMA Composition, MM Musicology) and he holds degrees from Rice University (MM Composition, 2013) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (BM Composition, BM Theory, 2010). Additionally, he has received further instruction at the Kärntner Landeskonservatorium and the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt. His primary composition teachers have included Karim Al-Zand, Chen Yi, Pierre Jalbert, Richard Lavenda, James Mobberley, Paul Rudy, and Zhou Long. He has also had lessons with Kathryn Alexander, Mark Camphouse, Amy Dunker, Carter Pann, David Rakowski, and Alfred Stingl. In addition to composition studies at UMKC, he will be researching the history, development, and literature of the wind band with musicologists William Everett and S. Andrew Granade and conductors Steven D. Davis and Joseph Parisi. Beyond music, Jenkins briefly studied mathematics at Loras College and holds a German language minor from UMKC.

Jenkins is a member of Pi Kappa Lamba National Music Honor Society; the National Band Association; the College Music Society; Society of Composers, Inc.; the Iowa Composers Forum; and ASCAP.
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His music is available through Veritas Musica Publishing and under his own imprint, Mühltal Musikpresse. He currently works as a contributor for Polyphonic.org's OnCampus Vlog through the Eastman School of Music and is in the process of forming a professional wind ensemble in the Kansas City area.
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In his spare time, Jenkins is an amateur scuba diver and daydreams of becoming an astronaut.

Works for Winds

• Boreas: The North Wind
• Eosphorus: The Morning Star
• Helios: The Unconquered Sun - forthcoming
• Hesperus: The Evening Star - forthcoming
• in transit
• inertia
• Quintet for Winds No 1
• We Seven - in progress

References

• Derek M Jenkins - Official Website