Biography Jason Levis (b. 1976 Evanston, Illinois) composer, drums/percussion Jason Levis, currently studying contemporary composition and performance in Berlin, and touring Germany with anti-folk band Susie Asado, is at once devoted to the intersection between contemporary composition and experimental improvisation, electronic art music and old school roots reggae dub, and abstract soundscape narratives and popular music. His wide-ranging creative efforts are skillfully bound by his innate sense of timbre, sonic space, and rhythmic force. Jason has performed his compositions in the United States with his own new music ensemble the Heftpistole Chamber Ensemble and roots reggae band Joseph's Bones, with the collaborative project duo B. with contrabassist Lisa Mezzacappa, and with several jazz ensembles such as Married Couple, Blowout, and the Lisa Mezzacappa Trio (featuring world renowned pianist Myra Melford). He has performed his music internationally in Japan with Four Flea Circus and in Canada with Paradigm Brass. Key Note +, The Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, the Aaron Novik Chamber Ensemble, and the bass clarinet quartet Edmund Welles have premiered his compositions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Levis has performed on drums and percussion extensively throughout the California with his own groups as well as with new music ensembles the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, sfSound and Aaron Novik's Crafty Apples, art-pop ensemble Floating World, chamber-klezmer group the Maccabeats, and numerous jazz ensembles. He has toured nationally with 1960's UK folk-rock star Donovan, the jazz quartet Married Couple, and Citta di Vitti, a jazz trio's homage to Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. He is currently touring internationally with German anti-folk band Susie Asado. Recent premiers of his work include Dub Concrète for computer and pre-recorded reggae band at the Alfred Hertz Memorial Concert Hall in Berkeley, California, Seitlich Spielen for piano, contrabass, and drums (featuring Myra Melford) at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, California and Portrait of a Nude Shadow (version) for prepared piano and harpsichord performed by the British ensemble Key Note + at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) in Berkeley, California. Jason Levis received the Meet the Composer Award, awarded to duo B. (with Lisa Mezzacappa), in 2006, the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007 and the Eisner Prize for Music, also from the UC Berkeley, in 2008. He is working towards his Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in Music Composition from UC Berkeley in 2006 and BA in Inter-Arts/Music in 1999 from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where he was Valedictorian. At Naropa Levis wrote his thesis on the connection between improvisation and meditation. Jason has studied composition with Cindy Cox, Jorge Liederman John Thow, and Edwin Dugger, and computer music with Edmund Campion and David Wessel. He has studied improvisation and composition with Henry Threadgill, Myra Melford, and Art Lande and studied drums and percussion with William Winant, Pete Magadini, Eddie Marshall, Scott Morris and Ernie Cruz. » back to Bio page