Aaron Helgeson

 Aaron Helgeson’s music - described by critics as "timeless" and “nothing short of mesmerizing” - explores the poetic boundaries of musical perception, drawing on the diverse fields of phenomenology, acoustics, literature, and cognitive science to create surreal and evocative sonic universes.With performances at venues including the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, IRCAM’s Manifeste 2012, and the 2013 World New Music Days in Vienna, his work has been championed by such ensembles as the Arditti String Quartet, New York piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, acclaimed chamber choir Les Cris de Paris, and Austrian new music group Ensemble Reconsil.His latest projects include a song cycle on fragments from medieval Occitan troubadour poetry commissioned by Grammy-winning soprano Susan Narucki, the title track for renown clarinetist Richard Hawkins' new CD A place toward other places, and an anti-oratorio for voices and orchestra based on the lives and music of Norwegian-American immigrants during the devastating Children's Blizzard of 1888.A former Fletcher Jones Fellow at the University of California San Diego, Helgeson holds prizes and accolades from ASCAP, the Fulbright Institute, American Composers Forum, and the Eiler Foundation. He currently resides in Ohio, where he is Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.