Last modified: Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Composer Aaron Travers appointed to faculty of the IU Jacobs School of Music
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- After serving as visiting professor, composer Aaron Travers has been appointed assistant professor of music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, pending approval of the Trustees of Indiana University.
Travers, whose appointment begins Aug. 1, 2011, has received numerous awards and commissions.
He has twice won the Belle Gitelman Award in Composition and the Howard Hanson Orchestra Prize, both from Eastman. He has also won the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition, the Chicago Symphony First Hearing Award, the Barlow Prize from the Barlow Endowment of Brigham Young University, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award and both a Charles Ives Scholarship and a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
"Aaron Travers is a welcome addition to the Jacobs School of Music Composition Department," said David Dzubay, department chair. "I know that the students share my enthusiasm for this appointment, given the favorable reactions we have seen to his teaching and music. His keen intellect, knowledge, experience and solid musical craftsmanship combine with a generous spirit that bodes well for the future of our department."
"I am delighted to be a part of this marvelous institution and to work with such esteemed colleagues," Travers said. "I could not think of a better place to teach, and I send my sincere thanks to Dean Gwyn Richards, Executive Associate Dean Eugene O'Brien and Associate Dean Mary Wennerstrom, and, of course, my colleagues in the Composition Department for their continued support."
Travers was born in Portsmouth, Va., in 1975. He earned a B.M. in Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1997, studying with Richard Hoffmann, and a B.A. in Classics from Oberlin College the same year. He later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music in 2003 and 2005, respectively. His teachers there included Sydney Hodkinson, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky and Augusta Read Thomas.
He has received commissions from the Frost Wind Ensemble of the University of Miami, Ars Mobilis, the Fromm Foundation, the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music, the Third Coast Percussion Quartet and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, among numerous others.
His works have been performed widely throughout the United States and Canada as well as in select locations in France and Mexico. In addition, his pieces have been featured at the Festival Les Solistes aux Serres d'Auteil and the Festival de Violoncelle, both in France, as well as the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in Lenox, Mass.
He currently resides in Bloomington with his wife, Winnie Cheung, and their son, Rowan.
