Biography

One of the youngest composers ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, AARON JAY KERNIS is among the most esteemed musical figures of his generation. With his "fearless originality [and] powerful voice" (The New York Times), each new Kernis work is eagerly awaited by audiences and musicians alike with intense anticipation, and he is one of today's most frequently performed composers. His music, full of variety and dynamic energy, is rich in lyric beauty, poetic imagery, and brilliant instrumental color.

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 for its 150th Anniversary ("New Era Dance"), the Philadelphia Orchestra for the inauguration of its new home at the Kimmel Center ("Color Wheel"), and the San Francisco Symphony ("Colored Field," an English horn concerto for Julie Giacobassi). Other commissions include "Air" for violinist Joshua Bell; "Lament and Prayer," a work for violin and string orchestra for Pamela Frank and the Minnesota Orchestra; a piano quartet ("Still Movement with Hymn") for Christopher O'Riley, Pamela Frank, Paul Neubauer, and Carter Brey for American Public Radio; "Goblin Market" for narrator and ensemble, on a text by Christina Rossetti for the Birmingham [England] New Music Group; and 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.

Recent orchestral commissions include "Color Wheel," by the Philadelphia Orchestra for the opening of the Kimmel Center, and a Toy Piano Concerto for Margaret Leng Tan by the Singapore Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra, as well as a chamber version of the work for radio station WNYC. A revised version of his monumental choral symphony, "Garden of Light," a Millennium Commission by the Disney Corporation for the New York Philharmonic, was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra. New chamber, choral, and electronic works were commissioned and premiered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Lincoln Center Great Performers Series (for Renee Fleming), Dale Warland Singers, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Kernis' upcoming commissions include his first opera, based on the prize-winning book "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett, for the 50th anniversary of Santa Fe Opera, and a violin concerto for Midori to celebrate her 20 years as a performer.

One of America's most honored young composers, Mr. Kernis received the coveted Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition (2002) for the cello and orchestra version of "Colored Field," the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 2 ("musica instrumentalis"), and Grammy Award nominations for both "Air" and Second Symphony. He has also been awarded 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. He has become an especially familiar and much-admired presence in Minnesota's Twin Cities; in September 1993, he was appointed Composer-in-Residence for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Public Radio, and the American Composers Forum, and he returned in the fall of 1998 as New Music Advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra, a position he retains to this day.

Recordings of the music of Aaron Jay Kernis are available on CRI, Nonesuch, and New Albion. Argo, with which Mr. Kernis had an exclusive recording contract, released his "Symphony in Waves," with Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony; String Quartet No. 1, performed by the Lark Quartet; "New Era Dance," with the Baltimore Symphony; and "Colored Field" and "Still Movement with Hymn" with the premiering performers. A widely acclaimed CD with Hugh Wolff conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Mr. Kernis's Symphony No. 2, "Invisible Mosaic III," and "musica celestis" was nominated for a Grammy, and won France's Diapason d'or Palmares for Best Contemporary Music Disc of the Year. Other recordings include an Argo disc of works for the outstanding young violinists Pamela Frank and Joshua Bell with David Zinman and the Minnesota Orchestra, and his Double Concerto with guitarist Sharon Isbin, violinist Cho-Liang Lin and Hugh Wolff leading the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; an Arabesque release of the Lark Quartet in the Pulitzer Prize-winning String Quartet No. 2 ("musica instrumentalis"); and a Phoenix disc of the Eberli Ensemble in various chamber works, featuring "The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine." His most recent release is a recording of the cello version of "Colored Field" and "Air," created for the Norwegian virtuoso Truls Mork and the Minnesota Orchestra with Eiji Oue on EMI/Virgin

Aaron Jay Kernis was born in Philadelphia on January 15, 1960. He began his musical studies on the violin; at age 12 he began teaching himself piano, and in the following year, composition. He continued his studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan and Yale Schools of Music, working with composers as diverse as John Adams, Charles Wuorinen and Jacob Druckman. Kernis first came to national attention in 1982 with the acclaimed premiere of his first orchestral work, "Dream of the Morning Sky," by the New York Philharmonic at its Horizons Festival. Mr. Kernis's music is published by Associated Music Publishers, and since 2001 by AJK Music for which Boosey & Hawkes acts as administrating publisher.