Jake Runestad

The first recording devoted solely to the music of Jake Runestad, The Hope of Loving: Choral Music of Jake Runestad, was released by Delos Productions in 2019. The recording features fourteen compositions performed by the choral ensemble Conspirare of Austin, Texas, conducted by Craig Hella Johnson. Later that year, the recording was nominated for a GRAMMY in Best Choral Performance.

An audio recording of a 2015 performance of Dreams of the Fallen in St. Paul, Minnesota, was broadcast nationwide on 29 May 2017 (Memorial Day) through the National Public Radio network.

Dreams of the Fallen was commissioned by a consortium including the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey, and the Virginia Arts Festival. It received its New York City premiere with the West Point Glee Club and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at Carnegie Hall on 19 November 2016, conducted by David Bernard. It received its Chicago premiere with the Chicago Composers Orchestra and the Wicker Park Choral Singers on 5 May 2018.

Runestad has received awards for his compositions from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the American Composers Forum, the Peabody Conservatory, New Music USA, the Otto Bremmer Foundation, VocalEssence, the Virginia Arts Festival, the National Association for Music Education, the Association for Lutheran Church Musicians, and the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, and has received commissions for his musical works from the Washington National Opera, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Seraphic Fire, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Rockford Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, the Spire Chamber Ensemble, the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare. He was also chosen as a Composer in residence for the 2015-2016 season of Choral Arts. In 2016, he was a recipient of the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the ASCAP Foundation in recognition of his composition Dreams of the Fallen. In May 2017, he was awarded a McKnight Fellowship for Composers (funded by the McKnight Foundation). and more recently was awarded the 2019 Raymond W. Brock Commission of the American Choral Directors Association, in this case for the composition "A Silence Haunts Me."

On Veterans Day, 11 November 2013, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, and pianist Jeffrey Biegel, under the direction of James Paul, presented Runestad's Dreams of the Fallen, a work for piano, orchestra, and chorus at the National World War II Museum. The work features the poetry of Iraq War veteran Brian Turner and explores a soldier's emotional response to the experience of war.

Runestad was born in Rockford, Illinois. His post-secondary education in music began at Eastern Illinois University, which he attended in the years 2004 and 2005. He received his first degree in music (a B.S. in Music Education) from Winona State University, which he attended from 2005 until 2009, then pursued graduate studies at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University between 2009 and 2011 to earn a M.Mus. degree in music composition. His teachers at the Peabody Conservatory included Kevin Puts. He has also studied with the composer Libby Larsen and worked with Bernard Rands, David Lang, Tania León, John Musto, Christopher Rouse, Jake Heggie, and John Duffy. He received a Distinguished Young Alumni Award from Winona State University in 2016.

Jake Runestad (born 20 May 1986) is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been the poet Todd Boss.