COMPOSER/TRUMPETER Jon Hassell is the visionary creator of a style of music he describes as Fourth World, a mysterious, unique hybrid of music both ancient and digital, composed and improvised, Eastern and Western.

After composition studies and university degrees in the USA, he went to Europe to study electronic and serial music with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Several years later, he returned to New York where his first recordings were made with minimalist masters LaMonte Young and Terry Riley, through whom he met the Hindustani raga master, Pandit Pran Nath, and embarked on a lifelong quest to transmute his teacher's Kirana vocal mastery into a new trumpet sound and style.

He began composing his own work, developing a collection of plans for "sound monuments," called the Landmusic Series. One of these was Solid State, an electronic work which combined the aesthetic of minimalism with the notion of the sculptural presence of sound; a tuned mass of sound surrounded the audience with vibrational forms evoking the imperceptible shift of sand dunes.

In the last two decades, he has recorded 11 highly influential, category-defying solo albums which have, over the years, become so widely appropriated that many of their innovations have become woven anonymously into the texture of contemporary music high and low.

“Vernal Equinox,” released on LP in 1978 by Lovely Music is considered to be Hassell's first "Fourth World" work. Hassell integrated his Kirana style trumpet with electronic effects and with subtly shifting synthesizer drones similar to those of Solid State, adding the sounds of ocean and birds and simple, evocative rhythm tracks.

While the liner notes for his 1983 record “Aka-Darbari-Java/Magic Realism” describe a technology-tradition balance resulting in a "coffee-colored classical music of the future", it was innovators in the field of pop such as Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel who - after collaborations with Hassell - steered the Fourth World idea into the avant-pop sphere where it has since evolved into myriad forms of "electronica", "new age", and "world music."

Notable concert appearances have included The Next Wave at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Serious Fun at Lincoln Center, La Foret Museum in Tokyo, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Paris Biennale, a Japan tour with Farafina, a traditional group of drummers and dancers from Burkina Faso and a spectacular appearance with eight Moroccan tribal groups at Expo 92 in Seville to celebrate Moroccan Independence Day. A European tour in November 1997 included sold-out performances at L'Opera de Nice and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Theatrical scores include “Sulla Strada,” created for the Venice Biennale, and “Zangezi,” directed by Peter Sellars. He has collaborated on presentations by fashion avant-gardists Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo and for choreographic works by Merce Cunningham and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. The Kronos Quartet commissioned and recorded his “Pano da Costa.” In 1996 the Netherlands Dance Theater commissioned “Lurch” - a major, evening-length piece choreographed by Australian dance maverick Gideon Obarzanek to the music of Hassell, arranged and remixed for performance by two onstage DJs. Hassell both appeared in, and composed the score to the Wim Wenders' film, “The Million Dollar Hotel,” in collaboration with Bono, Daniel Lanois, and Brian Eno.

In April 2002, Jon Hassell led a group consisting of Senegalese world music superstar Baaba Maal, top DJ/Producer Howie B, and Miles Davis keyboardist John Beasley in a world premiere of new music at London's Barbican Centre. Recent Montreal, Milan and Paris concerts (with special guests Paolo Fresu and Dhafer Youssef) by Hassell's new group become the raw material for magical transformation in his 2005 release, “Maarifa Street / Magic Realism 2” - a record which merges the spontaneity of live concerts with the detailing of a studio recording in yet another piece of musical alchemy in the same universe with the first "Magic Realism" record of 1983.

Other activity: Jon Hassell's theme for the Emmy Award winning ABC television drama series, “The Practice,” was recently chosen by TV Guide as one of the fifty greatest themes in television history. Solo appearances on records reveal an amazing range of artists, from the new Buenos Hermanos of Ibrahim Ferrer (Cuban superstar of Buena Vista Social Club) to Ani DiFranco's Reveling, to k.d. lang and Manhattan Transfer, a remix with Björk and producer Guy Sigsworth's new group, Frou Frou. Film scores and performances include “The Million Dollar Hotel,” “Wild Side,” “Owning Mahowney,” “Primary Colors,” “The End of Violence,” “Angel Eyes,” and “Love and Death in Long Island.”