| |
Aaron Cassidy (b. Illinois, USA, 1976) is a composer and
conductor with a
growing international presence. His work has been performed by some of the
world’s premier contemporary music specialists, including Ensemble SurPlus,
Ictus Ensemble, ensemble recherche, 175 East, ELISION, Kairos Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, Mieko Kanno, Garth Knox, Ian
Pace, Christopher Redgate, and Carl Rosman, at such venues as
the Gaudeamus International Music Week (Jurors Prize nominee, 2002 & 2004),
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Warsaw Autumn, Bludenzer
tage zeitgemäßer musik, Abbaye Royaumont, Bienal Internacional de Musica Y Tecnologia (Mexico City), Samtida
Musik Stockholm, June In
Buffalo, Akademie Schloss
Solitude, and the ISCM World Music Days (Zagreb 2005), and has been
broadcast by the BBC, Radio France, Deutschland Radio Berlin, Österreichischer Rundfunk,
Polish National Radio, and ABC Classic FM (Australia). He has
received grants, stipends, and commissions from allerArt Bludenz, the Yvar
Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Haupstadtkulturfonds Berlin, New York
Foundation for the Arts, Schloss Solitude Sommerakademie, ASCAP, and the American
Music Center.
Also active as a
conductor, Cassidy has led performances by student and professional
ensembles in a diverse range of contemporary repertoire. In
addition to conducting engagements at the June in Buffalo festival and in a
wide variety of
university settings, he served as conductor and pianist for Augenmusik,
a Buffalo-based ensemble specializing in the performance of graphical scores
and open-form works.
As an author his
contributions include chapters in the first, second, and sixth volumes of Wolke Verlag's New Music and
Aesthetics in the 21st Century series. Additionally, he has been increasingly active as a CD producer, most notably
with EXAUDI Vocal
Ensemble's critically-acclaimed recent releases on the NMC label.
In 2003, he completed a
Ph.D. in Composition as a Presidential Fellowship recipient at the University at Buffalo (SUNY)
under the guidance of David Felder, where he was awarded a Dissertation
Fellowship for advanced research. He has studied additionally in masterclass
and lesson settings with such composers as Richard Barrett, Chaya Czernowin,
Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Alvin Lucier, and Tristan Murail, among
numerous others.
Cassidy joined the faculty
of the University of Huddersfield as Senior Lecturer in Composition in the
autumn of 2007. He previously served as Lecturer of Composition at and
Co-Director of New Music Northwestern at Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois, and as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music
at Buffalo State College. |