Kurt Rohde

Kurt Rohde [they/he] plays viola, teaches and composes, and lives in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land with spouse Tim and dog Hendrix. Kurt is fascinated with finding ways to incorporate notions of failure and catastrophe as part of the pursuit of making something beautiful. Kurt is Artistic Advisor with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Artistic Director of the Composers Conference, and teaches Music Composition at UC Davis. Kurt has received the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, fellowships from the Radcliffe-Harvard Institute for Advanced Study and Guggenheim Foundation, and awards from American Academy of Arts and Letters, Barlow, Fromm, Hanson and Koussevitzky Foundations, Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, and Creative Capital. Kurt is the 2024 recipient of a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission in Memory of Andrew W. Imbrie from The Library of Congress.

Kurt has spearheaded initiatives to help create opportunities for composers: Pathways provides gifted young composers without access, to skills-based, respectful, informed instruction and performance opportunities, access to a fully-funded engagement in a long-term intensive student/mentor/performer workshop; The Commission Fund is a commission project supporting composers at different stages of their creative life; The Farewell Tour Project – PARTS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 targets underappreciated creative voices in the new music community.