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Ayers' Jericho, a large-scale surround-sound composition for wind symphony, choir, and narrator, has been performed in ten cities across United States. His other major surround-sound work, ...and they gathered on Mount Carmel, scored for either orchestra or wind symphony, has been performed by a number of collegiate symphonic bands around the United States with at least one performance in Europe. His work for solo tuba and accompaniment track,
The Dancing King (when King David "danced before the Lord with all this might"), has been performed on four continents and released on two CDs.
Dr. Ayers was recently awarded an Individual Creativity Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. He has been a guest composer on university campuses in California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Tennessee, and has held a fellowship at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. He was a selected composer for the 2004 Essentially Choral Reading Sessions in Minneapolis with conductor Philip Brunell, and his music has been performed at two International Tuba-Euphonium Conferences (Sapporo, Japan, and Lexington, KY, USA).
Elliot Schwartz writing in Perspectives of New Music says Ayers' music is "appealing in its virtuosity, playfulness, and drive." Percussive Notes says, "Give Jesse Ayers an A+ for imagination." CIDA News says, "The Ayers' piece...is particularly stirring, wonderfully transporting and imaginative." The Instrumentalist comments "this spirited composition sparkles," and Mark Nelson writing in TUBA Journal describes Ayers' music as having "intense rhythmic drive and beautiful melodic writing, sophisticated in texture and pleasurable to listen to."
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