Derek M. Jenkins

Derek M. Jenkins (b. 1986, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is an American composer whose music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada by ensembles and performers including the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra; the Fountain City Brass Band; the Seattle Wind Symphony; the U.S. Army Materiel Command Band; university bands and wind ensembles in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas; the Youth Symphony of Kansas City Symphony Orchestra; the Diamond Brass Band; Mid America Freedom Band; Tri-State Wind Symphony; the Carinthia, Joseph Wytko, and Saxophilia Saxophone Quartets; Ensemble for These Times; Songeaters; Washington Square Winds; Musica Nova; saxophonists Randall Hall, Gilbert Sabitzer, Michael Shults, and Joseph Wytko; and honor bands and orchestras around the country.

Jenkins's piece, 'Rock Bottom', was a finalist for the 2022 3rd Annual WASBE International Composition Contest. He won the 2016 American Prize in Composition for 'We Seven' and in 2012, his piece, 'Eosphorus: The Morning Star', was selected as a winner of the National Band Association's Young Composer Mentor Project.

Derek has received additional recognition from MMTA/MTNA, the Missouri State University Composition Festival, Red Note New Music Festival, MACRO, the UMKC Conservatory, the UMKC School of Graduate Studies, ASCAP, the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award Foundation, and at conferences and festivals across the U.S. and abroad, including the Midwest Clinic, Brass in Concert, CBDNA Divisional Conferences, SCI National and Regional Conferences, the USF New-Music Festival and Symposium, the LGBA National Conference, the NASA Biennial National Conference, the Florida State University Biennial Festival of Music, the Ball State University Festival of New Music, and CMS Regional Conferences.

Derek serves as Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Music Theory and Composition at Arkansas State University, is currently the Coordinator of the South Central Division and Arkansas MTNA Composition Competitions, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Jonesboro-based Diamond Brass Band. He has given masterclass presentations at the Sveučilište U Zagrebu Muzička Akademja, the University of Salford, and several universities and high schools around the US.

Derek holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (DMA Composition, MM Musicology, 2017; BM Composition, BM Theory, 2010) and Rice University (MM Composition, 2013). Additionally, he has received further instruction at the Kärntner Landeskonservatorium (now the Gustav Mahler Privatuniversität für Musik) and the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt. Beyond music, he was a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow at UMKC where he earned a Graduate Certificate in College Teaching and Career Preparation, and he briefly studied mathematics at Loras College.

His music can be heard on the ABLAZE Records, Mark Custom Records, and World of Brass labels, and is available through BrookWright Music, Murphy Music Press, Veritas Musica Publishing, and under his own imprint, Mühltal Musikpresse.

More information can be found at: www.derekmjenkins.com.