John Aylward

Composer and pianist John Aylward grew up in the Sonoran Desert on the border of Arizona and Mexico, a child of an immigrant mother from Germany (herself a World War II refugee) and in circumstances of both tremendous diversity and economic instability. His music processes the impacts of that earlier life, filled with a deep sense of community, rich expressions of converging cultural histories, and the otherworldly landscapes of the desert.

Some of the major distinctions Aylward has received for his music include a fellowship at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, a fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and both the Walter Hinrichsen Award and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Aylward’s music has also been recognized by the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Commission at the Library of Congress, MacDowell, Tanglewood, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, First Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music, and many other institutions, commissioning ensembles and arts organizations.