Artist

Artistic Roster

Aaron Jay Kernis

Composer Institute director

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, who has enjoyed a close association with the Minnesota Orchestra since 1992, is the founder and director of the Orchestra’s annual Composer Institute, an acclaimed professional launch pad for emerging composers that includes a week of seminars, orchestral readings and, since 2006, a public concert called Future Classics.

Born in Philadelphia in 1960, Kernis began his musical studies on the violin; at age 12 he began teaching himself piano and, the following year, composition. He continued his studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and both the Manhattan and Yale Schools of Music, working with composers as diverse as John Adams, Charles Wuorinen and Jacob Druckman.

His music figures prominently on orchestral, chamber and recital programs around the world. America’s foremost musical institutions have commissioned his work, including the New York Philharmonic, which marked its 150th anniversary with his New Era Dance; the Philadelphia Orchestra, which commissioned Kernis’ Color Wheel for the inauguration of its new home at the Kimmel Center; and the San Francisco Symphony, for which he wrote Colored Field, an English horn concerto premiered by Julie Giacobassi. Additional commissioned works include Air for violinist Joshua Bell (which earned the composer a Grammy nomination); Lament and Prayer, a work for violin and string orchestra for Pamela Frank and the Minnesota Orchestra; and the Double Concerto for Violin, Guitar and Orchestra, commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Sharon Isbin.

Kernis’ recent commissioned works include Newly Drawn Sky for James Conlon’s first season as the Ravinia Festival’s music director; Two Meditations for chorus and organ for the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble; a celebratory piece for the opening of the new San Francisco Conservatory; and music for the American Guild of Organists Convention. Further commissions include a piano work for Emanuel Ax and a trumpet concerto for Phil Smith, the New York Philharmonic and a consortium of college wind ensembles from around the U.S.

One of the youngest composers ever to be granted the Pulitzer Prize in Music, Kernis won the award in 1998 for his composition String Quartet No. 2, musica instrumentalis, commissioned and premiered by the Lark Quartet. In addition to the Pulitzer, his many awards have included the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for the cello and orchestra version of Colored Field, the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, an NEA grant, a Bearns Prize, a New York Foundation for the Arts Award and three BMI Student Composer Awards.

From 1993 to 1996 Kernis was composer in residence with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Public Radio and the American Composers Forum. From 1998 to 2009 he served as the Minnesota Orchestra’s new music advisor. His music is published by Associated Music Publishers and AJK Music, a subsidiary of Boosey & Hawkes.

September 2009