Aaron Cassidy
Encyclopedia
Aaron Cassidy is an American
composer
.
. He received a Bachelor of Music degree, with distinction, from Northwestern University
's School of Music in Evanston, Illinois
, where his main instructors in composition were Jay Alan Yim
, Alan Stout
, and Michael Pisaro
. He went on to study composition with David Felder and Jeffery Stadelman at the University at Buffalo (SUNY
) where he received a Ph.D. in 2003. He also participated in masterclass and lessons with composers including Richard Barrett
, Chaya Czernowin
, Brian Ferneyhough
, Jonathan Harvey
, Alvin Lucier
, and Tristan Murail
, among others.
. In works such as the ten monophonic miniatures for pianist, he treats the sound of the pianist's fingers on the keys as a separate parameter in the music, and in this and other pieces he incorporates and integrates a wide range of extended instrumental techniques. He is concerned to explore the possibilities of fracturing between different musical parameters, and to defamiliarise aspects of traditional performance practice. Intellectual influences upon his music include the work of Roman Jakobson
and that of Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari
. His work is sometimes associated with the New Complexity
, in which tradition he is the primary American composer.
Cassidy's work has been performed by a wide range of leading contemporary music specialists, including ELISION Ensemble
, Ensemble SurPlus, the Ictus Ensemble
, the Kairos Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, ensemble recherche, Mieko Kanno, Garth Knox
, Ian Pace
, Christopher Redgate, Carl Rosman
, and Peter Veale, at many venues and festivals including the Gaudeamus International Music Week
(where he was a Jurors Prize nominee, in 2002 and 2004), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
, the Bludenzer tage zeitgemäßer musik, the Bienal Internacional de Musica y Tecnología (Mexico City), the Samtida Musik Stockholm, the festival June In Buffalo, and the ISCM World Music Days (Zagreb 2005), as well as being broadcast by radio stations in Britain, France, Germany and Austria.
. He also works as a conductor and organist, and acts as conductor and pianist for Augenmusik, a Buffalo-based ensemble specializing in the performance of graphic scores and works in open form, frequently for unusual instrumentations. He has also worked recently as a CD producer, particularly for EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble in their discs of the music of Michael Finnissy, Christopher Fox, and Howard Skempton
, which were released on the NMC
label.
In 2005, Cassidy was appointed to the composition faculty of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University
, where he taught and was also responsible for organizing the New Music Northwestern concert series. He was formerly a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Buffalo State College
.
He joined the faculty of the University of Huddersfield
in 2007 as Senior Lecturer in Composition.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Education
Aaron Cassidy was born in IllinoisIllinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. He received a Bachelor of Music degree, with distinction, from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
's School of Music in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, where his main instructors in composition were Jay Alan Yim
Jay Alan Yim
Jay Alan Yim is an American composer living in Chicago. During the 1995-96 concert season, he served as Composer/Fellow for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra...
, Alan Stout
Alan Stout
Alan Ker Stout was a moral philosopher working at the University of Sydney, who also wrote on cinema. His father was G. F. Stout, British philosopher.-Biography:...
, and Michael Pisaro
Michael Pisaro
Michael Pisaro is a guitarist and composer. A member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, he has composed over 80 works for a great variety of instrumental combinations, including several pieces for variable instrumentation...
. He went on to study composition with David Felder and Jeffery Stadelman at the University at Buffalo (SUNY
State University of New York
The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
) where he received a Ph.D. in 2003. He also participated in masterclass and lessons with composers including Richard Barrett
Richard Barrett (composer)
Richard Barrett is a British composer.-Biography:Barrett began to study music seriously only after graduating in genetics and microbiology at University College London in 1980 . From then until 1983 he took private lessons with Peter Wiegold...
, Chaya Czernowin
Chaya Czernowin
Chaya Czernowin is an Israeli composer, and Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music at Harvard University....
, Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
, Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey (composer)
Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...
, Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
, and Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...
, among others.
Style
Cassidy's music exhibits a radical approach to parametric organisation in composition, especially in his solo works, in a manner that he describes as to do with decouplingDecoupling
The term "decoupling" is used in many different contexts.-Economic growth without environmental damage:In economic and environmental fields, decoupling is becoming increasingly used in the context of economic production and environmental quality. When used in this way, it refers to the ability of...
. In works such as the ten monophonic miniatures for pianist, he treats the sound of the pianist's fingers on the keys as a separate parameter in the music, and in this and other pieces he incorporates and integrates a wide range of extended instrumental techniques. He is concerned to explore the possibilities of fracturing between different musical parameters, and to defamiliarise aspects of traditional performance practice. Intellectual influences upon his music include the work of Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century...
and that of Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
. His work is sometimes associated with the New Complexity
New Complexity
In music, the New Complexity is a term dating from the 1980s, principally applied to composers seeking a "complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material" ....
, in which tradition he is the primary American composer.
Cassidy's work has been performed by a wide range of leading contemporary music specialists, including ELISION Ensemble
ELISION Ensemble
The ELISION Ensemble is a chamber ensemble specialising in contemporary classical music,concentrating on the creation and presentation of new works....
, Ensemble SurPlus, the Ictus Ensemble
Ictus Ensemble
Ictus Ensemble is a Belgian orchestra, founded by Jean-Luc Plouvierin 1994, specialising in Contemporary classical music...
, the Kairos Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, ensemble recherche, Mieko Kanno, Garth Knox
Garth Knox
Garth Knox, is a violist specialized in contemporary classical music, and new music.-Biography:Knox was the youngest of four siblings, and although he was born in Ireland, he was raised in Scotland, to a family who all played a variety of musical instruments...
, Ian Pace
Ian Pace
Ian Pace is a British pianist.Pace studied at Chetham's School of Music, The Queen's College, Oxford and the Juilliard School in New York. His main teacher was the Hungarian pianist György Sándor....
, Christopher Redgate, Carl Rosman
Carl Rosman
Carl Rosman is an Australian clarinettist.Rosman studied with Phillip Miechel in Melbourne, then with Peter Jenkin at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music...
, and Peter Veale, at many venues and festivals including the Gaudeamus International Music Week
Gaudeamus Foundation
The Gaudeamus Foundation and Contemporary Music Center is a renowned center for contemporary music. The Gaudeamus Foundation organizes and promotes contemporary musical activities and concerts both in the Netherlands and abroad...
(where he was a Jurors Prize nominee, in 2002 and 2004), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is held in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. It has a repertoire of cutting-edge jazz, orchestral, choral and electroacoustic performances, along with film, dance and music theatre...
, the Bludenzer tage zeitgemäßer musik, the Bienal Internacional de Musica y Tecnología (Mexico City), the Samtida Musik Stockholm, the festival June In Buffalo, and the ISCM World Music Days (Zagreb 2005), as well as being broadcast by radio stations in Britain, France, Germany and Austria.
Writings
Cassidy has also written articles for New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century and is currently preparing an article on the compositional pedagogy of Michael FinnissyMichael Finnissy
Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist. His music is characterised by the range of extremes often found in his work; opposing binary structures are found commonly, often seen as juxtaposing textures, register and tempi...
. He also works as a conductor and organist, and acts as conductor and pianist for Augenmusik, a Buffalo-based ensemble specializing in the performance of graphic scores and works in open form, frequently for unusual instrumentations. He has also worked recently as a CD producer, particularly for EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble in their discs of the music of Michael Finnissy, Christopher Fox, and Howard Skempton
Howard Skempton
Howard Skempton is a British composer and accordionist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music...
, which were released on the NMC
NMC
NMC may refer to:* NMC Records, an Israeli record label and music company.* NMC Recordings, a record label and music company in the United Kingdom* National Meteorological Center, now the National Centers for Environmental Prediction...
label.
In 2005, Cassidy was appointed to the composition faculty of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, where he taught and was also responsible for organizing the New Music Northwestern concert series. He was formerly a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Buffalo State College
Buffalo State College
The State University of New York College at Buffalo, referred to as Buffalo State College, often referred to colloquially as Buff State, is a public, liberal arts college in Buffalo, New York, United States and is part of the State University of New York. Buffalo State was founded in 1871 as the...
.
He joined the faculty of the University of Huddersfield
University of Huddersfield
The University of Huddersfield is a university located in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England.- History :The University traces its roots back to a Science and Mechanic Institute founded in 1825...
in 2007 as Senior Lecturer in Composition.