Aaron Helgeson

Composer Aaron Helgeson uses transcription, adaptation, and collage to mix contemporary sounds with historical sources like wax cylinders, medieval psalms, and unfinished manuscripts. His recent projects include a choral cycle for Grammy winning choir The Crossing layering words from the Novgorod Codex with text fragments by 20th-century authors in various states of exile, a 2016 Ohio Arts Council Award winning anti-cantata based on David Laskin’s book The Children’s Blizzard that combines Norwegian-American immigrant folk music fragments with sonifications of weather data, and a set of songs commissioned by soprano Susan Narucki and the Talea Ensemble using self-referential verses of ancient Occitan troubadour poems. Helgeson has received awards and grants from institutions like the Aaron Copland Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, and American Composers Forum. Recordings of his music are available on Carrier Records, Innova Recordings, and New Focus Records. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Montclair State University.