Christopher Jessup: Composing for the London Symphony Orchestra

Composer and pianist Christopher Jessup recorded two of his works with the London Symphony Orchestra — then spent the years after Juilliard unlearning the difficult, angular music he thought he was supposed to write. He explains why he stopped being afraid of things sounding pretty, and why a four-minute piece can carry as much weight as a symphony.Jessup is based in New York and graduated from The Juilliard School in 2021, where he studied composition with Melinda Wagner and piano with Jerome Lowenthal. He records for PARMA Recordings and its Navona imprint. The four-time Grammy-winning choir The Crossing recorded his choral cycle Astronomia, and The New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe singled out its movement "The Mississippi at Midnight" for its "eerie wonder."The conversation covers the concerto performance in Italy that fused the composer and the pianist into one artist, the June 2024 London Symphony Orchestra sessions filmed at LSO St Luke's, his ongoing work with The Crossing on a piece about how the brain heals from trauma, and why climate and mental health keep surfacing in his catalog. His solo album Emergence arrives February 5, 2027, with the title track released as a single on January 8, 2027.Classical Post is a video podcast on how classical musicians build careers, hosted by Jonathan Eifert and based in New York. Publishing original artist interviews since 2018 and in podcast form since 2021, the archive now runs past 150 conversations — long-form, on the record, and in the artist's own words.Produced by Gold Sound Media — specialist video-first marketing for elite performing arts institutions and major-stage artists. Clients include the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Gilmore Piano Festival.--Christopher Jessup: https://www.christopherjessup.com/Gold Sound Media: https://goldsoundmedia.com/Classical Post: https://classicalpost.com/