Biography
Jon Gibson is a composer, multi-wind instrumentalist (saxophones, flutes, clarinets) and visual artist who has taken part in numerous landmark musical events over the past three and a half decades, performing in the early works of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young and Philip Glass, with whom he continues to perform in various configurations, along with a host of other musicians, choreographers and artists including Merce Cunningham, Nancy Topf, Lucinda Childs, JoAnne Akalaitis, Simone Forti, Thomas Buckner, Harold Budd, David Behrman, Elizabetta Vittoni and Moacir Santos. Current projects and performances include collaborations with the Nina Winthrop Dance Company and dancers Elisabetta Vittoni and Hetty King. He is also involved with the work and legacy of Nancy Topf. Gibson recently received a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts with which he composed a music/theater piece about the inventor Nicola Tesla entitled Violet Fire. He has also received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and Meet the Composer. His music can be heard on the New Tone, Point Music, Lovely Music, EarRational Records and Einstein Records labels and he appears on recordings by Glass, Steve Reich, Frederick Rzewski, Arthur Russell, Annea Lockwood, Peter Zummo and Robert Ashley. His visual work, which is closely related to his music, has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world and manifests itself in various media, including drawings, videos, books, and prints. Gibson is a graduate of San Francisco State University where he studied composition with Wayne Peterson and Henry Onderdonk.