TJ Cole

Biography

TJ Cole (they/she) is a Philadelphia-based composer, originally from the suburbs of Atlanta. They have been commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall with Ensemble Connect, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Nashville in Harmony with Intersection, Time for Three with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Play On Philly!, the Music in May Festival, Music in the Vineyards, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, One Book One Philadelphia, among others.

Their music has been performed by various ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, the Henderson Symphony Orchestra, the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra, the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, the Sewanee Symphony Orchestra, the Dover Quartet, the Bakken Trio, and the Nebula Ensemble. They have also worked on numerous projects with Time for Three as an orchestrator and arranger, and served as a composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2014.

​TJ is also a singer-songwriter, producer, and engineer in the fully electronic synth-pop band, twin pixie.

TJ has participated in composition programs including the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and the New Emerging Artists Festival, and studied with Samuel Adler for a summer at the Freie Universität Berlin. They have won two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards (2014 and 2020), including the Leo Kaplan Award in 2020.

TJ has also been involved with music-related community outreach projects. She collaborated with bassist Ranaan Meyer as an orchestrator on his project, The World We All Deserve Through Music, and with First Person Arts by co-curating and performing in a musical story slam. During a yearlong ArtistYear Fellowship (2016-2017), TJ was able to co-run and collaborate in musical performances and songwriting workshops with residents of Project HOME, a Philadelphia based organization fighting to end chronic homelessness.

TJ received their Bachelor's degree in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy. Their mentors include John Boyle Jr., Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, and Richard Danielpour.

Other than music, TJ also enjoys drawing, baking, sewing, video games, and taking care of the various cats in her life: Xena, Zelda, Simmie, and Bruce.