Jeff Abell
Office: 624 S. Michigan, Rm. 1100 D
Email: jabell@colum.edu
Phone: (312) 344-7270
M.M. Music Composition
Northern Illinois University
B.A. Music Composition
Northern Illinois University
About:
Jeff Abell is a composer, performance artist, writer, critic, and teacher. He holds both B.A. and M.M. degrees in Music Composition from Northern Illinois University, where his teachers included Paul Steg and Chinary Ung. He also studied at the Center for World Music, where his teachers included I Nyoman Wenten, Philip Yampolsky, and Lou Harrison.
While he continues to compose both on paper and in the recording studio, much of his work for the last twenty years has taken the form of performance art, and he has presented performances from Potsdam, NY to Los Angeles, CA. Abell has also worked extensively as a writer, editor and critic, for such publications as the New Art Examiner, Dialogue, Stagebill, High Performance, and Chicago Artists' News (which he edited 1993-97).
He is currently a contributing editor to mouthtomouth. His work was included in the Museum of Contemporary Art's Art in Chicago, 1945 - 1995, and he edited and contributed two essays to the "Time Arts" section of the book that accompanied the exhibition. Abell has also worked in the not-for-profit art sector, and as an arts activist, and has traveled extensively as a consultant on interdisciplinary teaching, including designing and teaching a course for Duke University's Talent Identification Program (TIP).
He has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs in support of his work. His CD Natural Acts came out in 1997. He received Columbia College's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000.