Aaron Jay Kernis

Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis draws artistic inspiration from a vast palette of sources woven into the tapestry of a musical language of rich lyric splendor, vivid poetic imagery, and fierce instrumental brilliance. He has been praised for his "fearless originality [and] powerful voice" (The New York Times). His music has appeared on major musical stages world-wide and has been performed by many of America‘s foremost artists and institutions, including soprano Renee Fleming, violinists Joshua Bell and James Ehnes, guitarist Sharon Isbin, the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Walt Disney Company, Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, Ravinia Festival, and San the Francisco Symphony. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is an inductee of the Classical Music Hall of Fame, won the Nemmers Award, and the coveted Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition as well as the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 2 and received three Grammy Award nominations. His works have been recorded widely on the Nonesuch, Koch, Naxos, Signum, Virgin and Argo labels, among others. Leta Miller's book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published by University of Illinois Press as part of its American Composer series. He has taught composition at Yale School of Music since 2003.