Jake Landau
Jake Landau (he/him), b. 1995, is an American composer of opera, musical theater, ballet, and instrumental music. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera, and Premiere Division Ballet in venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, Birdland Jazz Club, and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Landau's work is published by Just A Theory Press, while select pieces of his have been published by G. Schirmer (Ayres, for SA and piano) and Edition Peters (Hardware Love, for orchestra).
After writing fantasy novels as a child, Landau turned to the closest thing to magic he could find in real life: music. At age 16, he became the youngest person accepted to Oscar-, Grammy-, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Corigliano’s studio at The Juilliard School. At Juilliard and as a Composition Fellow at summer institutions including the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, Landau created his core body of work in chamber and vocal music. At the same time, he worked in premiere pop music studios, experimental queer nightclubs, and as a pianist for both opera and Broadway productions. This unique background led him to a sound that at turns explores and ignores genre, in which hit-factory hooks interact with the concept-driven architectures of classical music—all in service of a theatrical worldbuilding lifted, in abstract, from fantasy novels.
Landau's formative studies were with theater composer and lyricist Lawrence Rosen. After earning his bachelor’s degree at Juilliard under John Corigliano, Landau graduated from Oxford University with a master’s degree and First Class Honours.
Landau's two operas have seen productions in Italy and America. He has two musicals in development: ROSIE (www.RosieMusical.com), an original dramedy about the iconic "Rosie The Riveter", and PSYCHE (www.PsycheTheMusical.com) a queer retelling of the Cupid & Psyche myth. He has also written two musicals each under 15 minutes: "Echo & Narcissus", which has seen multiple productions in New York and Boston, and “The Coin Toss”. Premiered at the legendary Birdland Jazz Club by Broadway star Sam Gravitte (most recently seen as Fiyero in Wicked on Broadway), "The Coin Toss" features music, lyrics, and orchestrations by Landau. The premiere performance garnered the following review from Broadway World: “though one is reluctant to use The S Word, Mr. Landau’s composition is so creative and innovative that one cannot help but be reminded of another musical theater titan whom everyone admires [Sondheim].”
In addition to his composing, Landau is a lyricist, conductor, orchestrator, and Baroque keyboardist. A regular performer of his own works and others’, he has written, arranged, and music-directed concerts for a wide-range of singers from celebrated indie artists to leading Broadway stars, including Katrina Lenk and George Abud, at iconic venues like The Duplex, The Greenroom 42, and 54 Below.
Landau is the youngest-ever winner of the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; one of NYFOS’S (New York Festival of Song) “9 under 34” composers; a board member of experimental theater company Off-Brand Opera; a Clarendon Scholar of Oxford University; and an Extension-Division faculty member at Juilliard in New York, where he is based full-time. Landau is represented by UIA Talent Agency.