Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 3, 2003|Volume 32, Number 5

Aaron Jay Kernis

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
joins School of Music faculty

Aaron Jay Kernis, one of the youngest composers ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, joined the composition faculty of the School of Music this fall.

"The appointment of a composer of Aaron Jay Kernis' stature to our faculty continues Yale's century-old leadership in the area of New Music," says Robert Blocker, dean of the School of Music. "His is a unique musical voice that will no doubt have a great impact on the next generation of composers. That Aaron studied here at the Yale School of Music before his rise to prominence as a composer gives me even greater satisfaction."

Kernis' works will be featured at the first concert of this year's New Music New Haven series on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 8 p.m. in Sprague Memorial Hall, corner of College and Wall streets. Works by guest faculty composer Dwight Andrews, associate professor of music at Emory College and an alumnus of Yale's School of Music and Divinity School, and by current Yale students Patrick Burke and David Stovall will also be performed.

Admission is free. More information is available at www.yale.edu/music; at (203) 432-4158 and at the Sprague Hall box office, which is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Kernis has written works for many of the nation's foremost musical institutions and noted artists.

He studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Manhattan School of Music and Yale.

Kernis won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his String Quartet No. 2 (musica instrumentalis). His other awards include the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for cello and orchestra version of "Colored Field," the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Rome Prize and more. Currently, he is New Music adviser for the Minnesota Orchestra.

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