Jeff Beal, a five-time Emmy-award-winning composer of music for film, television, the concert stage and dance, will perform at the 2023 GreenStage festival with his jazz trio and as a solo pianist. Beal will perform on the festival’s main stage on Sunday, September 24, at 3 p.m. with his jazz trio, which features bassist John Patitucci and guitarist Steve Cardenas. On Friday, September 22, he’ll perform original piano etudes at the First Congregational Church of Guilford, also starting at 3 p.m.
Among his multitude of credits, Beal composed the main theme to the television show House of Cards and wrote the scores to the movie Pollock; the documentaries Blackfish, An Inconvenient Sequel, JFK Revisited and The Biggest Little Farm; and the TV shows The Newsroom, Rome and Monk. His recent orchestral commissions include works for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The New West Symphony, the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Cantus, plus dance compositions for Oregon Ballet Theatre and Smuin Ballet.
He's a leading practitioner of the pairing of music with visual imagery, a talent he’s expected to bring to students at Guilford High School this fall as part of the GreenStage festival’s educational programming. Check out this short Instagram interview we did with him and watch his TED talk to get a sense of how he views and approaches his work. You can learn more about Jeff and listen to some of his music here.