Biography

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.  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 a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music, the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, the Collide trio, the Hamilton College Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Tarab Cello Ensemble, the Barlow Endowment, the Eastman Trombone Choir, the University of Rochester, the South Dakota Symphony, and Gloria Musicae of Sarasota, Florida.  Mr. Travers’ works have been performed widely throughout the United States and Canada, as well as select locations in France, earning critical acclaim.  In addition, he has served as composer-in-residence at the Seaside Institute in Seaside, Florida, conducting work on a children’s opera and working with local students.  He currently resides in Evanston, Illinois, teaching composition at Northwestern University.