bio

John Eagle is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. His work operates within ecological frameworks involving extended instrumental systems. These works explore harmonic intonation as an environmental process.

Eagle has performed and presented work internationally including EMPAC’s Reembodied Sound 2024, the Sound/Image Festival in London, Int-Act Festival in Bangkok, Heidi Duckler Dance’s Ebb & Flow festival, UC Irvine’s The Art of Performance, Hear Now Music Festival, Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium, Göteborg Art Sounds, Co-Incidence Festival, Live Arts Exchange, and the Dog Star Orchestra festival.

Sound House, a performance installation developed with Janie Gesier and Cassia Streb, features a sixteen-channel wireless sound instrument he designed with Eric Heep. He was a lead artist on two collaborative sound films (Sound House and transient flows) presented by Music for Your Inbox in 2022/23. He works with Charles Gaines as musical director and co-arranger for his Manifestos 4, conducting its premiere in Times Square in July 2022 and its studio recording.

His music has been performed by Tacet(i) Ensemble, Red Desert Ensemble, Brightwork New Music, Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Isaura String Quartet, Southland Ensemble, Inverted Space, and others.

Eagle holds degrees from Bennington College (BA) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and is a DMA candidate at Cornell University where he studies with Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri and Kevin Ernste. He was the Composition Fellow at Bennington College from 2009 – 2011 where he taught and directed music for theater and music productions. Based in Los Angeles, Eagle performs in a variety of contexts on French horn and with his own instruments.

upper left photograph by Denise Leitner/Rush Varela courtesy of Heidi Duckler Dance, middle photographs courtesty of Göteborg Art Sounds. Other musicians pictured: Emily Call, Christine Tavolacci, Tashi Wada, Cassia Streb, Julia Holter, Michael Pisaro-Liu, Todd Lerew.