Aaron Cassidy

6 Last updated 9 October 2020.

Aaron Cassidy is Professor of Composition and Director of the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM), for which he oversees the Huddersfield Contemporary Records (HCR) CD label and the Divergence Press peer-reviewed journal.

He joined the staff at the University of Huddersfield in 2007, and has previously held the roles of Director of Graduate Education (School of Music, Humanities & Media), Research Coordinator (Music & Music Technology), and Postgraduate Coordinator (Music & Music Technology). Prior to Huddersfield, he served as Lecturer of Composition at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Buffalo State College.

Cassidy completed a Ph.D. in Composition in 2003 as a Presidential Fellowship recipient at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York) under the guidance of David Felder, where he was awarded a Dissertation Fellowship for advanced research. He studied additionally in masterclass and lesson settings with such composers as Richard Barrett, Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Alvin Lucier, and Tristan Murail, among numerous others.

His work as a composer has been programmed by leading international contemporary music specialists including ELISION, Ensemble SurPlus, EXAUDI, Ictus Ensemble, Musikfabrik, ensemble recherche, 175 East, Talea Ensemble, the Kairos, Diotima, and JACK string quartets, and soloists including Garth Knox, Ian Pace, Carl Rosman, Peter Veale, Mieko Kanno, Ryan Muncy, Jeffrey Gavett, Diego Castro, and Christopher Redgate, at major international festivals and venues including Donaueschingen, Ultraschall, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, Gaudeamus, Dark Music Days, Bludenz, Bendigo (BIFEM), Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, NYCEMF, June In Buffalo, the ISCM World Music Days, Southbank Centre, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Le Poisson Rouge, Sendesaal Bremen, and Monday Evening Concerts.

He has received grants, stipends, and commissions from Südwestrundfunk, allerArt Bludenz, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Haupstadtkulturfonds Berlin, New York Foundation for the Arts, ASCAP, the American Music Center, Arts and Humanities Research Council, British Council, PRSF 20×12/London Cultural Olympiad 2012, and the RMIT Gallery Sonic Arts Collection. Recordings of his work are available on NEOS, NMC, HCR, and New Focus Records. 

He has given invited lectures and masterclasses at significant institutions for new music including Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, University of Chicago, CalArts, SUNY Buffalo, Oxford, Southampton, York, Durham, University of Queensland, RMIT, Künstuniversität Graz, Norwegian Academy of Music, National University of Singapore, SEGi College Malaysia, Orpheus Institute Ghent, Goethe Institut-Los Angeles, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.

• Composition
• Late 20th/21st Century Musicology and Analysis
• Experimental Music
• Post-structuralist theory (memory & complexity theory, theories of space, Deleuze/Guattari)
• Instrument mechanisms, acoustics, and timbral analysis