Born in 1978, Jason Rico is a Mexican-American composer of instrumental, vocal, and stage music with a particular interest in chamber music and opera. He has created a body of work in multiple genres including symphonic, wind ensemble, choral, art song, chamber music, and opera. Jason also performs on piano, viola, violin, horn, saxophone, and as a vocalist.

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Jason studied composition and theory at Butler University and composition with Andrey Kasparov and Adolphus Hailstork at Old Dominion University with a focus in vocal and choral composition. He also studied vocal work with Jeff Ray and Eric Esparza at DePaul University. 

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While attending Butler Jason toured with orchestras in Taiwan as a violist and in Italy as a hornist under the batons of Stanley DeRusha and Kevin McMahon respectively. 

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While attending Old Dominion, he held the principal horn position in the Wind Ensemble, principal viola in the University Symphony, and was a joint winner of the Old Dominion University Concerto Competition with his brass quintet resulting in a performance of Shadowcatcher – a Concerto for Brass Quintet and Wind Ensemble by Eric Ewazen with the Old Dominion University Wind Ensemble. He was a bass section leader in the University Choir and performed Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore at Carnegie Hall.

 

His compositional style has been praised for its complex and truly American style. Jason's ability to pair the musical line with text was highlighted in his work This Land of Heroes for chorus, assorted instruments, and electronics for which he was awarded the Old Dominion University Honors' Grant. While at Old Dominion he was an Ellis Scholar, Thompson Scholar, and a Norfolk Foundation Diehn Scholar.

 

His musical, Escape from the Haltsburg Boys' Choir was performed in Chicago in 2011. Jason most recently performed with the DePaul University Concert Choir, Symphonic Choir, Chamber Choir, and was a DePaul University Grant recipient. He also performed in Chicago's Orchestra Hall with the DePaul Symphonic Choir in Brahms' Shicksaslied. In 2025 he contributed the music to the theater piece Forging Legends, written by Cincinnati playwright R. DeAndré Smith.

 

Jason lives in Illinois, and teaches private composition lessons in the Chicago area. He is in the process of completing an extensive set of Anglo-American folk songs, You're Welcome Here Kind Stranger, as well as a song cycle of poems and poetry fragments by Gerard Manley Hopkins, ah! bright wings.