Jay Cloidt
Composer, Sound Designer, Dearest of Friends
October 5, 1949 – April 17, 2026
Obituary by Paul Dresher, Philippa Kelly
Jay Cloidt lived a life filled with music—the kind that makes you think, laugh, and feel its visceral impact. He left this world in his sleep early in the morning of April 17th, but his playful, resonant music will echo long after.
Jay’s musical journey began with a classical foundation. He earned his BA in piano performance from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and his adventurous spirit soon led him out west. In 1977 he worked with Veronica Aiken at the Upstairs Art Association in Oakland, and she says of this collaboration, “We were real rebels back then.”
Jay’s friend Mark Dalton recalls: “Some of the best adventures Jay and I had together were as members of the Isaac Scott Band, including backing up the fabulous Albert Collins at Seattle’s after-hours nightclub, Hibble and Hyde’s, where the action was just warming up at 2 a.m. Playing the San Francisco Blues Festival in Golden Gate Park in 1978 was another high point, with Jay leaving a blood-streaked keyboard on the festival’s grand piano.”
Next up for Jay: Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. There, in 1981, he earned his MFA in Electronic Music and the Recording Media, under mentors Robert Ashley and David Behrman.
For those lucky enough to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jay was a sonic hero. As a sound designer and live sound engineer, he first worked with Paul Dresher, and the two continued their collaboration and deep friendship until Jay’s death. Jay was the invisible hand behind countless powerful live performances, designing and mixing live sound and touring the world with renowned organizations such as the Kronos Quartet, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. He won a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for his work on the Paul Dresher Ensemble’s Slow Fire, and an Isadora Duncan Award for sound design on Rinde Eckert’s Dry Land Divine.
As a composer, Jay created music with a magical mix: technically sophisticated, yet brimming with warmth and humor. His commissions included works for Nancy Karp and Dancers, the Kronos Quartet, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Brenda Way/ODC Dance, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle called him “The Spike Jones of the Bay Area new music scene.” Jay’s music traveled the world, including the Venice Biennale, New Music America, and Lincoln Center.
Jay’s spirit lives on in his recordings, especially his solo CD Kole Kat Krush, released by Starkland. The All-Music Guide, giving this piece a 4-star review, called it “a wonderful, accessible, and yet challenging album from one of new music’s brightest lights.” Stereophile agreed, giving it four stars and noting that Jay was “one of the few composers in the post-sampler era to fully develop that tool’s fascinating and witty potential.” Composer Carl Stone praised the album for its “skill, wit, perversity, and adroitness.” Starting in 1999, for nearly a decade Jay brought his playful genius to Leapfrog, creating sounds that sparked musical inventiveness in children.
Perhaps no night summed up Jay Cloidt better than October 20, 2017 at Berkeley’s Hertz Concert Hall with a retrospective concert celebrating the composer’s life in sound that also acknowledged Jay’s 8 years as the Audio Engineer for the UC Berkeley Music Department and the Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT). The audience heard everything from the majestic Sather Tower carillon to the tender intimacy of the Eco Ensemble String Quartet, from a solo piano piece to a hilarious and magical “duet for pianist and pian(o” with interactive electronics. And we heard the soaring, dramatic music from Jay’s theater work Darc: Woman on Fire, featuring a collaboration with Amanda Moody and Melissa Weaver to create a piece for singer and cello.
Jay Cloidt wasn’t just a composer and sound designer. He was a unique light, a dearly warm friend, and an acerbic wit who proved that music should always have a twinkle in its eye. He will be dearly missed, and we join his beloved wife Kathleen (who shares his unique blend of wit and compassion) in mourning him.
Jay also leaves behind his sister, Monica Vance, and nephew Matt Vance, both of Lincoln, Nebraska, and his Kennedy sisters-in-law and their children, all of whom treasured him. The final words for Jay’s fascinating, agile spirit can be left in the hands of one of his favorite bands, ABBA: “What a joy, what a life, what a chance!”
Jay Cloidt Faces 1965-1981-present
Memorial:
Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 2 PM
Dresher Ensemble Studio
2201 Poplar Street, Oakland