Aaron Travers

Title: Las Guitarras Azules
Commission: 2006
Completed: 2008
Instrumentation: guitar, soprano, and large ensemble
Premiere Location:
Premiere Ensemble:
Notes: Dedicated to Nathan Fischer

Aaron Travers was born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1975. He earned a BM in Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1997, studying with Richard Hoffmann, as well as a BA in Classics from Oberlin College the same year. He later earned an MA and PhD 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.

Mr. Travers has received numerous awards and commissions, most recently second prize in the 2013 Alexander Zemlinsky Composition Competition from the Cincinnati Conservatory. He is winner of the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and a Charles Ives Scholarship, both from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Some of his other awards include the Fromm Music Foundation Commission Award, the Chicago Symphony First Hearing Award, the Barlow Prize from the Barlow Endowment of Brigham Young University, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award, and the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition.