The Composer

Originally from the Boston area, Mr. Sacks studied composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, with graduate studies completed at the University of California. His teachers included Kenneth Gaburo, Pauline Oliveros, and Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Reynolds. He was awarded an Artist in Residence from the California Arts Council, and an HEW grant for the composition of three touring musicals. Mr. Sacks has won numerous composition competitions, including the Independent Composers Association and the Pacific Composer's Forum.

Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, XTET, and the California Ear Unit have performed his concert works in New York and Los Angeles. He is currently composer-in-residence for the Classical Theatre Lab. In addition, Mr. Sacks has composed incidental music for productions of "Hamlet", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Macbeth", and "Cymbeline", Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", Brecht's "Mother Courage", Euripides' "Elektra" and Mark Medoff's new play "Stumps". He is currently at work with internationally produced playwright Robert Auletta on a musical theater piece "Full Lunar Light". As a member of The Contemporary Arts, Music, and Performance Alliance, he co-produced multi-media productions at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater as part of the L.A. County "Summer Nights at the Ford" series, the Bachofner Gallery, and Mount Saint Mary's College.

Jonathan Sacks is active in film music as arranger and orchestrator. He has orchestrated film scores by Randy Newman, Michael Kamen, Mark Snow, Harry Gregson-Williams, Christopher Stone, and William Goldstein [including "Toy Story 2", "A Bug's Life", and "The X-Files (movie)"]. Additionally he has been an arranger for the rock group KISS, for David Foster and Barbara Streisand, and for commercials. Mr. Sacks is affiliated with BMI.

The presentation of The Human Family Tree… is a renewal of the collaboration between the artist and composer, which began in 1980 in San Diego where they shared a studio for several years.