Much of Aaron Rosenberg's music is consciously informed by narrative, drawing inspiration from such varied sources as the Old West, fantastic chickens, high school lust, and Bertrand Russell.
As a teenager, Rosenberg attended the New England Conservatory of Music’s preparatory school, studying composition with Rodney Lister and Alvaro Cordero. After a year studying piano at Eastman, he earned a Bachelor of Music in composition from the Berklee College of Music. Following a rather lengthy sojourn into semi-corporate America, Rosenberg earned a Master of Music in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory, studying with Conrad Susa and David Conte. He was awarded a PhD in composition from the University of Oregon, where he studied with Robert Kyr and David Crumb.
Rosenberg won the San Francisco Conservatory’s Seventh Annual Kris Getz Award for Composition in 2003. During the same year, he received an honorable mention for his short choral work “Orphanage” at the Third Annual Choral Composition Competition. In addition to winning several ASCAP Plus Awards (2004–2007, the University of Oregon presented Rosenberg with the Gary E. Smith Summer Grant for study at the 2006 European American Musical Alliance’s month-long summer composition program in Paris.
Rosenberg was a Graduate Teaching Fellow (2003–2007) in the Music Theory department at the University of Oregon, instructing at all levels in keyboard skills, aural skills, theory, and analysis. He currently teaches Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Rosenberg's piano quintet "Crowd Scene" will be performed on May 29, 2011 at the finals of the Staatstheater Darmstadt's Soli fan tutti Kompositionspreis. This work was funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center.