John Aylward

Associate Professor, Visual and Performing Arts

JAylward@clarku.edu

'Brilliant energetic rhythmic figures…imaginative sonorities and harmonies that always move, always inflect'. -- American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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. His work is influenced by a wide ranging love of literature, from Sartre and Jung to Calvino, Melville and contemporary poets Louise Gluck, Robert Lowell and Dean Young, and like the poets and philosophers who inspire him, his music questions our fundamental personal and worldly relationships.

John is a John S. Guggenheim Foundation fellowship recipient, and has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. He has been twice awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has also been awarded residencies at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Arts, and other artist spaces. He is the recipient of commissions from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard and the Koussevitzky Commission at the Library of Congress. Early in his career, he won First Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music.

John is also an active teacher, scholar and performer, and a co-director of Ecce Arts, a non profit performance art group. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory, Brandeis University, 2008
- M.F.A. in Music Composition, Brandeis University, 2005
- B.M. in Piano Performance, University of Arizona, 2003
Affiliated Department(s)
- Visual and Performing Arts Department
Scholarly and Creative Works
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- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Chute
  
  Harvard Musical Association
  
  ●
  
  Boston, MA
  
  Oct. 24, 2023
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Chute
  
  Music
  
  Clark
  
  ●
  
  Atwood Hall
  
  Oct. 22, 2023
  
  John Aylward
- Other Scholarly or Creative Work
  
  Celestial Forms and Stories
  
  February
  
  ●
  
  2022
  
  New Focus Recordings
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Workshop for new opera
  
  Pine Box Studios
  
  ●
  
  Florence, MA
  
  Sep. 1, 2021
  
  John Aylward
- Article in Refereed Journal
  
  Compositional Process in Elliott Carter’s String Quartets: A Study in Sketches by Laura Emmery (review)
  
  Published in Oxford University Press
  
  May
  
  ●
  
  2021
  
  ●
  
  Vol. 101
  
  ●
  
  Issue #2
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Workshop for New Chamber Opera
  
  AREA Gallery
  
  ●
  
  Boston, MA
  
  Mar. 12, 2020
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Ananke
  
  Chamber Music
  
  Good Shepherd Church at Lincoln Center
  
  ●
  
  New York
  
  Nov. 1, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Other Scholarly or Creative Work
  
  Angelus
  
  N/A
  
  April
  
  ●
  
  2020
  
  ●
  
  Vol. N/A
  
  ●
  
  Issue #FCR261
  
  New Focus Recordings
  
  ●
  
  New Focus Recordings / New York, NY
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Workshop for New Chamber Opera
  
  Clark
  
  ●
  
  Razzo Hall
  
  Oct. 25, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Tiergarten
  
  Chamber Music
  
  KM28
  
  ●
  
  Berlin, Germany
  
  Sep. 11, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Flux Ripple Flutter
  
  Chamber Music
  
  International New Music Forum
  
  ●
  
  Palace of Fine Arts. Mexico City, Mexico.
  
  Sep. 24, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Narcissus
  
  Chamber Music
  
  Distler Hall. Tufts University
  
  ●
  
  Medford, MA
  
  Sep. 24, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Tiergarten
  
  Chamber Music
  
  Roslindale Beer Garden
  
  ●
  
  Roslindale, Massachusetts
  
  Oct. 11, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Exhibits, Shows, Performances & Readings
  
  Flux Ripple Flutter
  
  Chamber Music
  
  National Taipei University.
  
  ●
  
  Taipei, Taiwan
  
  Oct. 22, 2019
  
  John Aylward
- Other Scholarly or Creative Work
  
  Oblivion
  
  New Focus Recordings
  
  John Aylward
- Other Scholarly or Creative Work
  
  Untitlted
  
  Please see below
  
  Please see below
  
  John Aylward

John Aylward

Degrees

Affiliated Department(s)

Scholarly and Creative Works