John Mackey

John Mackey has written for orchestras (Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony), theater (Dallas Theater Center), and extensively for dance (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Parsons Dance Company, New York City Ballet), but the majority of his work for the past decade has been for wind ensembles (the fancy name for concert bands), and his band catalog now receives annual performances numbering in the thousands. John has a number of compositions recognized on the Bandworld Magazine Top 100 list and is an active participant in this project. The American Academy of Arts and Letters writes, "His music has enormous range, from the slow and darkly emerging opening of Aurora Awakes to the manic zaniness of Asphalt Cocktail to the grand sweep and romanticism of Wine-Dark Sea. His Songs from the End of the World show a mature composer with an unfailing sense of the human voice and the beauty of subtly shifting colors."

Recent commissions include works for the BBC Singers, the Dallas Wind Symphony, military, high school, middle school, and university bands across America and Japan, and concertos for Joseph Alessi (principal trombone, New York Philharmonic), Christopher Martin (principal trumpet, New York Philharmonic), and Julian Bliss (international clarinet soloist). In 2014, he became the youngest composer ever inducted into the American Bandmasters Association. In 2018, he received the Wladimir & Rhoda Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He resides in New York City, with his spouse, A. E. Jaques, a philosopher who works on the ethics of artificial intelligence for MIT, and also titles all of his pieces; and their cats, Noodle and Bloop.