Described as "gorgeous…instantly appealing” (LA Times), and hailed as a “vast acoustic of the imagination” (Village Voice), Ira J. Mowitz’s music thoroughly engages and moves the listener emotionally, often reshaping or suspending one’s sense of time. His work covers a wide range of forms and genres: instrumental, chamber, solo, orchestra, vocal, ballet, film and video, digital and analog, MIDI, and a host of multimedia combinations.

Ira’s projects have involved the intersection of different media. Answering Machine Music — commissioned by the Edith Siday Foundation and the American Music Center for their project “On Hold” — uses software MIDI instruments, and the recorded voice of Ira’s younger son. The work was subsequently featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. In NASA-commissioned A Shout Across Time, he created a multimedia piece for orchestra, sopranos, film, and synchronized digital soundtrack that included – among other things – the sounds of black holes, a collage of rock n’ roll songs from the 60s - 90s, and a re-composition of Einstein’s favorite Mozart Sonata. His International Computer Music Association commissioned piece, Kol Aharon, for solo violin and digital soundtrack, incorporates the voice of his older son at one-year’s-old , and was choreographed by the National Dance Company of Spain for their the ballet Child’s Play. In Jubilum  — a US League ISCM official submission to World Music Days —Ira created a sprawling, digital, super-orchestra treading the line between real and only imagined, outsized instruments.

Ira Mowitz is a graduate of Trinity College, Hartt College of Music, and Princeton University, with additional studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (1st prize in composition Wettbewerb Neue Musik), Wiener Hochschule für Musik, IRCAM ( Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris, and Stanford University’s CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics). A two-time recipient of a Fulbright Scholar award for study in Austria, he has also been a Guggenheim fellow, a Fulbright Senior Scholar visiting professor at the Cracow Akademie of Music, an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) visiting composer at California Institute of the Arts, and a Rockefeller Foundation Artist in Residence Program at Stanford’s CCRMA.

Ira has received commissions and grants from the NJ State Council on the Arts, the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kaufman Center and Special Music School for the gala re-opening of Merkin Concert Hall, and ORF, Österreichischer Rundfunk  (Austrian National Radio) for Studio Tirol’s Projekt Pausenfüller. He has received fellowships from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the McDowell Colony, Princeton University, and the Ville de Paris for residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, among others.

Ira’s music has been performed by many well known ensembles such as eighth blackbird, California Ear Unit, Present Music, Kepler Quartet, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Pro Arte Orchestra. His pieces have been featured at the Spoleto Festival USA, Warsaw Autumn, New Music America, and on concerts at LACMA, Curtis, and Juilliard. His music is recorded on NewAlbion and Centaur and is also available on Spotify. In fall 2023 his Suite for Solo Cello, performed by his son, Zachary, will be released by Guarneri Hall across all digital platforms.

Ira lives in Princeton, NJ where he figure skates daily to Bach, Mozart, late Beethoven, Aznavour, and Aguilera.