Aaron Cassidy is an American composer and conductor. After 15 years of living and working in England, in 2022 he relocated to Germany, which had increasingly become the base for much of his conducting activity. He lives in Berlin and works as Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, where he also serves as Director of Incontri—Institut für neue Musik.

As a composer, he is best known for his influential work with multicolored, graphical, tablature notations that prioritise the physical, bodily, and mechanical aspects of sound-production in music, alongside his more recent work exploring the notation of ‘non-geometrical’ rhythm, which untethers speed, duration, and meter from traditional concepts of pulse. Recordings of his work are available on 12 commercial CD releases from NEOS, Kairos, NMC, HCR, and New Focus Records, and his compositions have been presented in hundreds of performances across 29 countries at festivals including Donaueschingen, Ultraschall, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, Gaudeamus, Dark Music Days, Bludenz, Mixtur, and Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, and at important venues for new music including Southbank Centre London, Miller Theatre, National Concert Hall Taipei, and the Melbourne Recital Centre. 

Aaron’s work as a conductor is stylistically diverse, encompassing both contemporary and historical repertoire across orchestral, operatic, chamber, and choral settings. He has led many dozens of world premieres, including work by Richard Barrett, Mary Bellamy, Ann Cleare, Nomi Epstein, Turgut Erçetin, Lucia Kilger, Dariya Maminova, Sergej Newski, and Erik Oña, as well as several of his own compositions. Through the pandemic period he built a strong reputation for his ability to learn challenging repertoire quickly as a last-minute jump-in for numerous high-profile performances. Notable recent appearances as a conductor include performances with Ensemble Musikfabrik in the Großer Saal of the Berlin Philharmonie for Musikfest Berlin; ensemble mosaik in works by Laura Bowler, Sara Glojnarić, and Sergej Newski at MaerzMusik; ELISION and violinist Harry Ward (Berlin Philharmonic) in the Australian premiere of Liza Lim’s Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus at the Melbourne Recital Centre; and as Musical Director for the premiere of Ann Cleare’s opera The Little Lives at the Munich Biennale with Ensemble Musikfabrik. He has recorded as a conductor for the Kairos and HCR labels, with two further releases forthcoming on Wergo.

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CURRENT/UPCOMING: 

  • 25. April ’05 (in progress) for solo bassoon, commissioned by James Aylward
  • sonata (in progress) for violin and piano, for Harry Ward and Alex Waite
  • Erasmus+ Residency (lectures, masterclasses in composition & conducting), Gustav Mahler Privatuniversität für Musik, Klagenfurt. 31 March – 4 April 2025
  • Conductor, ELISION. Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991–20.3.1991). Also The wreck of former boundaries (2016) for electric lap steel guitar and electronics, Daryl Buckley (ELISION), lap steel guitar. Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Musik. Konzerthaus Klagenfurt, Neuer Saal, Klagenfurt, Austria. 3 April 2025
  • The wreck of former boundaries (2016) for solo saxophone. Joshua Hyde (ELISION), alto saxophone. Hrvastki Dom, Split, Croatia. 13 April 2025
  • The wreck of former boundaries (2016) for electric lap steel guitar and electronics. Daryl Buckley (ELISION), lap steel guitar. Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Germany. 16 April 2025
  • Conductor, Ensemble Incontri. Works by Boulez and Berio. Klangbrücken Festival. Richard Jakoby Saal, Hannover. 30 April 2025
  • The Crutch of Memory (2004). Das Neue Ensemble (Jessica Kuhn, cello). Klangbrücken Festival, Tonstudio Tessmar, Hannover. 4 May 2025
  • Conductor, Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) residency with ELISION. Works by Xenakis, Donatoni, Lim, and Mundry. Melbourne, 16–20 June 2025

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS: 

  • “Reassessing Non-Geometrical Rhythm” (published March 2025), a text reflecting on the 10th anniversary of my Huddersfield inaugural professorial lecture “Imagining a Non-Geometrical Rhythm”
  • Radio portrait, hr2-Kultur/ARD, “JetztMusik,” 30 January 2025
  • Conductor, Ensemble Musikfabrik. Recording works by Dariya Maminova for Wergo. Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Köln, 14–17 January 2025
  • Conductor, Akademie der Künste “Winter Music” 2024 (with Lange//Berweck//Lorenz, Seth Josel, and Martin Smith). York Höller Tangens. Berlin, 7 December 2024
  • Conductor, ELISION; with Harry Ward, violin solo (Lim); Joshua Hyde, saxophone solo (Bellamy); Paula Rae, flute solo (Barrett). Works by Richard Barrett (wp), Mary Bellamy (wp), and Liza Lim, plus Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991–20.3.1991). Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, Australia, 5 July 2024
  • Conductor, Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) residency with ELISION. Liza Lim Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus. Melbourne, 24–30 June 2024
  • Conductor, ELISION. Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991–20.3.1991) and world premieres of works by Turgut Erçetin, Mary Bellamy, Tom Bañados, and Thanos Sakellaridis. Klangbrücken Festival, Richard Jakoby Saal, Hannover, 30 April 2024
  • Conductor, ELISION. Recording Das Phonem zwischen zwei Wörtern (c) by Turgut Erçetin for Wergo, Deutschlandfunk-Funkhaus, Köln, 8 April 2024