JORDAN DYKSTRA (b. 1985, Sioux City, Iowa) is a Brooklyn-based violist and composer exploring the performer-composer-listener relationship through the incorporation of conceptual, graphic, and text-based elements. In 2007 he moved to Portland, OR and became involved in the experimental music scene in the Pacific NW. Aside from performing and recording with individuals and bands — including Dirty Projectors, A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Hildur Guðnadóttir, Atlas Sound, and Valet — he worked at Marriage Records and Publishing House. In 2014 he received a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to apprentice with Daníel Bjarnason, composer and conductor of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, in Reykjavík, Iceland. He received his BFA in 2016 under Michael Pisaro, Ulrich Krieger, and Wolfgang von Schweinitz at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. In 2018 he received his MA in Experimental Composition from Wesleyan University in Connecticut where — under the mentorship of Alvin Lucier and astrophysicist Seth Redfield — his thesis explored connections between microtonality and the cosmic distance ladder. In 2019 he received a Cultural Grant from the Netherlands-America Foundation to compose “The Arrow of Time” and premiere the work with Reinier van Houdt in Amsterdam. In 2020 The Arrow of Time was listed as one of the best Modern Composition albums by The Wire and included in The Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2020 by Bandcamp. In 2021 he completed an MFA in Media Scoring at the Feirstein School of Cinema and as a media composer he has numerous credits including the Oscar and BAFTA-winning film 20 Days in Mariupol (also winner of the 2023 Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival), Blow the Man Down, Hail Satan?, It Comes At Night, and the 2019 Emmy winner for Outstanding Investigative Documentary Documenting Hate. Included in the prestigious 2024 class of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40, Dykstra will be honored at America’s largest documentary film festival in November. His compositions for film have been heard at Cannes, Sundance, TriBeCa, TIFF, and the IFFR. His performance highlights include MOCA (CA), Harpa (Iceland), Musikfestval Bern (Switzerland), Ftarri (Tokyo), CHAFF (Brussels), KM28 (Berlin), Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), Syros Institute (Greece), Yale Union (OR), Big Ears Festival (TN), and the RISD Museum (RI). Recordings of his music (solo and collaborative) have been issued by New World Records, Domino, Important Records, Elsewhere, Milan, Marriage Records, Mexican Summer, K Records, Gilgongo, and Dykstra’s own cottage industry label Editions Verde.

Photo by Melanie Barksdale