Composer J.T. Wolfe's (b. 2003) faith in his work is continually renewed by his interactions with the audiences, musicians, and fellow composers he is lucky to share it with. Always seeking to create outside of his comfort zone, his musical language is constantly growing and changing, but remains committed to lyricism, vivid harmonic and instrumental color, and transformation.

Much of J.T.’s music attempts to explore and challenge the related concepts of extra-musicality and musical expression, or the notion that music is sufficient to suggest to the listener that which lies beyond it. Attempting to move beyond mere ‘inspiration’ and ‘depiction,’ his works often engage with concepts taken from nature - such as the play of sunlight and shadow through canopies of leaves in Foliage, or the alien landscapes of the American west in La Sal Sketch and Canyons - by allowing them to deeply effect his compositional structures and techniques. He is interested in what might be called the musically ‘uncanny,’ or the intensely expressive experiences that arise when the familiar is deliberately frustrated or encounters resistance.

J.T. has been privileged to collaborate with a variety of talented performers, from professional ensembles such as the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the American Wild Ensemble, and Khemia Ensemble, to dozens of student performers, including the Mizzou New Music Ensemble. He has participated in festivals and events such as the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival as a featured composer; the 2024 Emerging Composers Intensive at Hidden Valley, CA, where he studied composition with Nick diBerardino and Wang Jie, networking and public speaking with Fred Child of Performance Today, and collaborated with world-class performers on premiering his string quartet Lyric Piece; and the UMKC Composition Symposium, where he studied with composer Yotam Haber and worked with the American Wild Ensemble. He has received commissions for new works from the Sheldon Arts Foundation and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. Upcoming projects include a new piece for JACK Quartet, to be premiered in April 2026.

In 2025, J.T. completed his undergraduate studies in composition at the University of Missouri, where his teachers included Utku Asuroglu, Stefan Freund, Yoshiaki Onishi, and Carolina Heredia. In addition to composing, he is a dedicated private instructor of composition, a professional music engraver, and pianist. He currently resides in his home state of Missouri.

JT Wolfe