About

Jacob Richter is a composer and pianist from the San Francisco Bay Area who is attending Oberlin College and Conservatory. He strives to write music that can be appreciated on multiple levels, from casual listening to deeper consideration. His music favors rich lyricism, evocative chromaticism, driving rhythms, and thematic development, and is alternately imbued with emotional intensity and lighthearted humor.

Jacob has been composing music ever since he can remember, specializing in composing acoustic music for chamber ensembles and solo piano. In addition to these works, he has composed pieces for large ensembles, such as Prelude and Toccata, an energetic piece for orchestra premiered at the 2023 Mostly Modern Festival, and Snickerdoodles (Serves 24), a piece for SATB choir, winds, strings, and percussion that sets a snickerdoodle recipe to music in a web of motivic interplay. He also enjoys composing electronic music, including the soundtrack to Graviton, a video game he designed and created. Though not his primary compositional approach, Jacob enjoys experimenting with various processes to generate compositional material. In his most recent chamber work, Crosstunes, he created a crossword puzzle containing only the letters A to G and set the puzzle’s words to music. His piece Chicago derives its melody from the heights and positions of the buildings in the Chicago skyline.

Jacob’s works have been performed in venues across the United States including Finney Chapel at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, Lorimer Chapel at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His piano quintet, Exploration, was recorded by the Friction Quartet in conjunction with pianist Justin Schrum. As a pianist, Jacob regularly performs at Congregation Beth Am services and for the elderly community at retirement homes, and in school musical theater productions.

Jacob orchestrated and composed additional music for The World Is Only Magic, a musical by Phin Samdperil, another Oberlin student, and music directed and conducted the show’s premiere with the Oberlin Musical Theater Association.

Jacob is currently pursuing a BM in composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio under the tutelage of Michael Frazier, Stephen Hartke, Jesse Jones, and Jihyun Kim. He has previously studied composition and piano with Eric Weg and composition with Elizabeth Ogonek.