DEREK M. JENKINS – COMPOSER​

Derek M. Jenkins (b. 1986, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is an American composer, whose music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Brazil by ensembles and performers including the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra; the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra; Fountain City Brass Band; Dresdner Bläserphilharmonie; Czech National Concert Band; Banda Sinfônica Municipal de Hortolândia; 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 Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin; the Youth Symphony of Kansas City Symphony Orchestra; Free State Brass Band; Diamond Brass Band; Mid America Freedom Band; the Carinthia, Joseph Wytko, and Saxophilia Saxophone Quartets; Ensemble for These Times; Songeaters; Washington Square Winds; saxophonists Randall Hall, Gilbert Sabitzer, Michael Shults, and Joseph Wytko; trombonist Bruce Faske; and honor bands and orchestras around the country.

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He received an honorable mention for Remnants in the 2023 Carlos Guastavino International Composition Competition and was a dual finalist in the 2023 4th Annual International WASBE Composition Contest with his pieces Fountains and Solar Flare. In 2022, Jenkins won first prize in the Dresdner Bläserphilharmonie's Winds Composition Contest Saxony I Edition  with his composition, We Seven, and his piece, Rock Bottom, won first place in the 3rd Annual International WASBE Composition Contest. We Seven also won the 2016 American Prize in Composition and in 2012, Eosphorus: The Morning Star, was selected as a winner of the National Band Association's Young Composer Mentor Project. Jenkins has received additional recognition from MMTA/MTNA, the Missouri State University Composition Festival, Petrichor Records, 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, the WASBE International Conference, Brass in Concert, the International Trombone Festival, CBDNA Divisional Conferences, SCI National and Regional Conferences, New Music on the Bayou, 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. Recent commissions have come from a consortium of bands led by the University of Central Missouri Wind Ensemble (Corey Seapy, conductor); a consortium of bands led by the Wichita State University Wind Ensemble (Timothy Shade, conductor); the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra; the National Youth Brass Band of America; the Arkansas State University Concert Choir; trombonist Bruce Faske; and trumpeter Nairam Simoes among others.

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In addition to his work as a composer, Jenkins is actively researching the history and literature of the wind band and the history of orchestration. Currently, he is continuing his investigation of the 1921 Iowa Band Law (H.F. 479) and its enduring use in supporting municipal bands in Iowa today. Jenkins's MM Musicology thesis, on the same topic, earned the University of Missouri-Kansas City's 2017 Distinguished Master's Thesis Award.

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This fall, Jenkins will begin serving as Associate Professor of Music Theory at Missouri Western State University. He previously held a similar position at Arkansas State University. Additionally, he had served as the Coordinator of the South Central Division and Arkansas MTNA Composition Competitions, and as a member of the Board of Directors for the Jonesboro-based Diamond Brass Band. In 2023, he was awarded the Arkansas State University College of Liberal Arts and Communication's Faculty Award for Emerging Scholarship for his research and creative pursuits. He has given masterclass presentations at the Sveučilište U Zagrebu Muzička Akademja, the University of Salford, and several universities and high schools around the country. Jenkins 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.

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His mentors have included James Mobberley, S. Andrew Granade, Joseph Parisi, Karim Al-Zand, Chen Yi, Steven D. Davis, William Everett, Pierre Jalbert, Richard Lavenda, Paul Rudy, and Zhou Long. He has also studied with Amy Dunker, Peter Graham, and Alfred Stingl.

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Jenkins is a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society; the National Band Association; the College Music Society; the American Musicological Society; the Society for American Music; the Society of Composers, Inc.; and ASCAP. 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.​

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In his spare time, Jenkins is an amateur scuba diver and baker, and he daydreams of becoming an astronaut.

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