Biographie
Bio short version
Chris Jarrett is a musical boundary-crosser with American roots and a life in Europe. He was born in 1956 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. His passion for composing ignited early, but it was a fortunate coincidence that brought him together with the pianist Vincenz Ruzicka, who was a first strong musical inspiration.
After studies in Indiana and Oberlin, which he abandoned due to artistic dissatisfaction, he spent years jobbing through the USA and Europe, eventually landing in Northern Germany. There, his career as a composer and university lecturer began. He achieved his breakthrough in 1985 with the ballet *Für Anne Frank* (For Anne Frank). This was followed by LPs, film scores, a symphonic ballet, and international tours – from Berlin to Belgrade, from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia.
In the 1990s, Jarrett moved to the German Rhineland and devoted himself to larger works such as the opera *John Donne* and the oratorio *Erlösung 3?* ("Redemption 3?"). His musical curiosity led him to North Africa, Ukraine, and to intercultural collaborations.
From 2001, he founded the Chris Jarrett Trio, composed theater music, and performed in renowned concert halls. In 2005, he created the humorous piece, "Quarter-Final," (for 11 strings) for the FIFA World Cup. Numerous projects followed: the quartet "Four Free," duos, music theater, teaching programs, and tours around the globe.
Since 2010, back in Germany, Jarrett teaches music history at the University of Mainz, and occasionally performs with his wife, the pianist Martina Cukrov Jarrett. He is also to be seen and heard increasingly as an organist. His more recent works include the "6 Hölderlin Songs," the organ improvisations "New Journeys," and the monumental song project "16 English Songs" for baritone voice and piano.
In 2024 he toured the USA and released the CD "Chris Jarrett: Six Hölderlin Songs / English Songs" on DaVinci Classics in Japan – another milestone in a career that consistently moves between worlds.
Klavierfestival, Ruhr, 2025
Bio long version
Chris Jarrett was born in 1956 in Allentown, Pa. and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. He never doubted that he would become a composer, but economical and family problems hindered his musical education until Virginia Waring (wife of Fred Waring) introduced him to the Austrian pianist Vincenz Ruzicka (of Dougherty and Ruzicka, piano duo) at the age of 13. Ruzicka, a student of Rosina Lhévinne living in the Pocono mountains becomes his most important teacher.
Jarrett continues his musical studies at Indiana University and Oberlin Conservatory, where he receives a partial scholarship. Disappointed with the environment and musical standards of these institutions, he leaves for "the road." He says that it was really then that his career as a creative musician began ("15 Questions with Chris Jarrett"). Jarrett unwillingly gets to know the hardships of work on a shrimp boat, in various factories in Texas, in offices in New York. He travels, first the U.S. and then Europe, by thumb in a wild quest for survival and first-hand knowledge.
It was in North Germany that friends give him what he needs – a new musical start and a job. Within a short time, he studies, and then teaches at the University of Oldenburg. He composes small political piano compositions and then the full-fledged ballet "For Anne Frank", which is premiered in the Oldenburg Palace in 1985. After this important year, Jarrett's career is on its way. First LPs are "Tanz auf dem Vulkan," and "Aufruf/Outcry". He becomes an unusual, critically thinking and engaged musical figure in Oldenburg – and more and more in all of Northwestern Germany.
