Biography
German-American composer Tim Jansa was born in Köln (Cologne), Germany, in 1974.
In 1983, he moved to Nuremberg, Germany, where he attended German Gymnasium from 1985 to 1994, during which time he studied music and conducting under his mentor Kurt Karl, and attended courses at the Nuremberg Conservatory of Music. During this time, he wrote his first compositions for various choral and orchestral ensembles.
After the performances of a few smaller pieces between 1988 and 1990, his Mass in C-Minor for chorus, soloists and orchestra was produced in 1991 to high acclaim, succeeded by various orchestral and choral compositions in the years to follow. In 1994, his rendition of the well-known sonnet The New Colossus (1883) by American writer Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was performed with great success. During his high school and early college years, Jansa wrote several other works for orchestra, most notably his Stabat Mater, the initial composition of which was completed in 1997 and the score arranged for full symphony orchestra in 2007.
Jansa’s compositional endeavors underwent a longer hiatus due to his undergraduate studies in English and Geography at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, emigration to the United States in 1996 to attend graduate studies at the University of Wyoming, and eventual relocation to the Atlanta area after graduating with a Master’s Degree in German literature in 1998.
Between 1999 and 2002, while pursuing a successful career in the field of foreign language instruction and cross-cultural training, Jansa completed his String Quartet Nr.1, followed by the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Songs for the People for solo soprano and piano, and eventually by the first Konzertsatz for Piano and Orchestra.
In the fall of 2004, Jansa was granted a commission by the DeKalb Choral Guild and its director, Mr. Bryan Black, to write a choral composition to commemorate the 200th anniversary of German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller’s (1759-1805) death. The resulting work for a cappella chorus, Sehnsucht, was premiered in the summer of 2005 under the composer’s direction and performed repeatedly during the ensemble’s subsequent European concert tour.
The summer of 2006 marked the beginning of a a successful working relationship with the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony and its conductor, Dr. Scott Stewart. To this day, this collaboration has resulted in the compositions Study for Winds (2006) and Utica Sketches (2007), both for large wind ensemble.
Mr. Jansa was a featured composer at the International Euphonium Institute 2007; the commissioned tuba euphonium quartet Meditation and Madness was premiered during the event’s gala concert on June 16, 2007, and has been published at Euphonium.com. Another work for chamber ensemble, the String Quartet Nr. 2 “Ghost”, was added to Jansa’s growing opus in the fall of 2007.
In December of 2007, Jansa completed his Symphony Nr.1 “Pillars of Wisdom”, a large work in 4 movements for traditional symphony orchestra that began its life in the summer of 2005 as a musical meditation on the title of T. E. Lawrence’s autobiographical account “Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph”, first published in 1922.
In the spring of 2008, Jansa was granted two commissions resulting in a set of 3 short fanfares for double antiphonal tuba-euphonium quartet, as well as a sextet for winds and percussion to be premiered in February of 2009.
Tim Jansa lives in Atlanta, GA, and teaches at Georgia State University and Agnes Scott College.