John Mackey Joins Rhythm X for WGI World Championships
Rhythm X is excited to welcome composer John Mackey to Dayton, Ohio for the second half of WGI World Championships week. Mr. Mackey will be arriving in Dayton in the evening on Thursday, April 15 and departing on Sunday, April 17. On his visit, he will attend WGI Percussion World Championship Finals on Saturday evening and then WGI Winds World Championships Finals on Sunday afternoon.
Rhythm X Winds are performing John Mackey’s work “Aurora Awakes” in their production titled Aurora. We are excited to welcome Mackey to Winds rehearsal while he is in town to help refine, polish, and provide creative input in the final stages of our competitive season. We are looking forward to the opportunity to have such a well-respected, influential composer help us bring Aurora to the next level.
John Mackey holds degrees from the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald Erb, respectively. John has received commissions from the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Parsons Dance Company, the New York Youth Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, the Dallas Theater Center, New York City Ballet, the Dallas Wind Symphony, the American Bandmasters Association, and many universities, high schools, middle schools, and military bands. His trombone concerto, "Harvest," composed for New York Philharmonic principal trombonist Joseph Alessi, has received dozens of performances worldwide and been commercially recorded three times.
John has served as composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival, the Vail Valley Music Festival, and with youth orchestras in Minneapolis and Seattle. He has received performances by the Dallas Symphony, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic, as well has thousands of middle school, high school, university, and military concert bands and wind ensembles. He is a two-time recipient of the ABA/Ostwald Prize, first for "Redline Tango" (his first wind band piece), and then for "Aurora Awakes" (which also received the NBA/Revelli Prize, making it one of only three pieces to ever win both prizes). The US Olympic Synchronized Swim Team won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics performing to John's score, "Damn."
John was inducted into the American Bandmasters Association in 2013. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.