Pascal Le Boeuf (born August 3, 1986) is an American pianist, composer and producer whose works, both solo and with others, range from modern improvised music to cross-breeding classical with production-based technology.

Le Boeuf won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition in 2025 for "Strands" (from Are We Dreaming the Same Dream? by Akropolis Reed Quintet, Pascal Le Boeuf, and Christian Euman). He had been nominated for the same award twice before, for the works "Alkaline" (2018) and “Snapshots” (2023).

Since 2000, he has co-led the jazz group Le Boeuf Brothers with his identical twin brother Remy Le Boeuf.

Career

Le Boeuf was born in Santa Cruz, California. He is a 2004 YoungArts alumnus. He studied jazz piano at the Manhattan School of Music with Kenny Barron (Bachelors in Music in 2007 and Masters in Music in 2010) and music composition at Princeton University with Steve Mackey, Dmitri Tymoczko, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Donnacha Dennehy, and Louis Andriessen.

In 2004, Pascal and his twin brother Remy formed Le Boeuf Brothers and together released four albums, mixing jazz, hip hop, electronic and classical styles.

Le Boeuf's solo career includes Pascal's Triangle, the album recorded as a piano trio with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Justin Brown, and he composed music for the 2008 Emmy Award-winning movie King Lines. He played as support for D’Angelo’s Second Coming US tour and the British electronic group Clean Bandit with Australian pop vocalist Meg Mac.

Since 2015, Le Boeuf's work has focused on collaborations with artists including Bec Plexus and Ian Chang, Alarm Will Sound, Iarla Ŏ Lionáird, Hub New Music and Four/Ten Media, Shattered Glass, Nick Photinos, Sara Caswell, Jessica Meyer and Todd Reynolds.

In 2025, Le Boeuf joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Assistant Professor of Music where he currently teaches composition. Previously, he served as an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Music and Technology at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music from 2021-2025.

Accolades

Le Boeuf won first place in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition. He has won multiple Independent Music Awards in Jazz, Eclectic, Electronica, and Music Video categories.

Le Boeuf received a FROMM Commission from Harvard University in 2015, the 2015 ASCAP Foundation Johnny Mandel Prize, and 2011 and 2015 New Jazz Works Commissions from Chamber Music America in collaboration with JACK Quartet and Le Boeuf Brothers.

In 2017, Le Boeuf was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for his work "Alkaline" from the album Imaginist recorded by the Le Boeuf Brothers and the JACK Quartet. He was also nominated for his work “Snapshots” in the same category in 2023.

He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University, in 2025 where he was the recipient of a Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellowship. His dissertation "Metric Irregularity For The Creative Musician" explores how irregular rhythmic structures function across metric levels, how they are perceived and interpreted by performers, and how they can be used expressively and creatively in contemporary musical practice.

Discography

Leader, featured artist

Collaborator

• Tasha Warren & Dave Eggar, “Snapshots”, Ourself Behind Ourself, Concealed (Bright Shiny Things, 2022) – composer, pianist, editor

• Real Loud, “Forbidden Subjects”, Real Loud (New Focus Recordings, 2021) – composer, producer

• Bec Plexus + JACK Quartet and Ian Chang, “mirror image”, StickLip (New Amsterdam Records, 2020) – composer, producer, keyboardist

• Barbora Kolářová, “Imp in Impulse”, Imp in Impulse (Furious Artisans, 2020) – composer, producer

• Hub New Music, “Media Control”, July 3, 2020: A Benefit Compilation (New Amsterdam Records, 2020) – composer, producer

• Wolff Parkinson White, Favours (Nonplace, 2020) – vocalist, composer

• Joy On Fire, Hymn (Procrastination Records, 2020) – pianist

• Dmitri Tymoczko, Fools for Angels (New Focus Recordings, 2019) – pianist

• Remy Le Boeuf, Light as a Word (Outside in Music, 2019) – co-producer

• A New Age for New Age, “Our Kingdom”, New Age for a New Age Vol. 1 (NA4NA, 2019) – composer, producer, keyboardist

• Owen Lake and The Tragic Loves, The Best of Your Lies (Carrier Records, 2018) – keyboardist

• Nick Photinos (featuring JACK Quartet, Charles Yang, and Jeffrey Zeigler), “Alpha”, Petits Artѐfacts (New Amsterdam Records, 2017) – composer, producer

• Shattered Glass, “Transition Behavior”, Shattered Glass (Shattered Glass, 2017) – composer

• Jesus on the Mainline, The Morning Bell (Ropeadope Records, 2017) – keyboardist

• Empty Promise, Empty Promise – Single (Empty Promise, 2017) – co-composer, co-producer

• Ian Rosenbaum, Memory Palace (National Sawdust Tracks, 2017) – co-producer

• Allan Harris, Nobody’s Gonna Love You Better (Love Productions Records/Membran Entertainment, 2016) – pianist, keyboardist, arranger, songwriter

• RighteousGIRLS, Gathering Blue (New Focus Recordings, 2015) - composer, producer

• Allan Harris, Black Bar Jukebox (Love Productions/Must Have Jazz, 2015) - pianist, keyboardist, arranger

• ROMY, Unbound (Romy Balvers, 2014) - co-producer, keyboardist, backup vocalist

• Natalie Cressman & Secret Garden, Unfolding (Cressman Music, 2012) – pianist

• Michael Thomas, The Long Way (Michael Thomas, 2010) – pianist

• Murray-James Morrison, Happy Every Day (Murray-James Morrison, 2010) – pianist

• Bastien Weinhold, River Styx (FrameMusic, 2010) – pianist

• Mike Ruby, Play Time (Alma/Universal Music, 2007) – pianist, keyboardist

• Glass Eye Trio, Harajuku (Glass Eye Trio, 2007) – pianist, keyboardist

• Colin Stranahan, Transformation (Capri Records, 2006) – pianist, composer

Film and TV

Filmography

References