ABOUT AARON
Aaron Grad (b. 1980) merges his rock and jazz roots with his classical training to create music that The Washington Post has described as “inventive and notably attractive.” A native of Alexandria, Virginia, he initially studied jazz guitar at New York University and went on to earn a master’s degree in composition at the Peabody Conservatory as a student of Christopher Theofanidis.
His joyous and playful perspective as a composer is on display in his recent string quartet for young audiences, How Notes Become Music, which uses music, poetry and animation to offer life lessons about human connection. As a performer, his greatest passion is playing the electric theorbo that he designed and built himself, as heard in Old-Fashioned Love Songs, a song cycle with countertenor. His arrangements, performed regularly at major orchestras around the world, include songs associated with Édith Piaf and a set by Will Marion Cook commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony for Rhiannon Giddens.
Aaron is also the Artistic Director of Many Messiahs, which reframes material from Handel’s Messiah in service of racial justice. In collaboration with a diverse group of genre-bending artists, Aaron is co-writing and arranging the original songs that fill this groundbreaking holiday program.
Aaron channels his enthusiasm for communicating with audiences into the program notes he writes for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, 92NY, and many other clients. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons.