Michael Alec Rose is a composer of symphonic, chamber, piano, vocal, wind ensemble, ballet, and theater music. His music has been performed widely in the United States, as well as in Europe and South America. With renowned violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved, he co-directed six rounds of an International Exchange Program between Vanderbilt and the Royal Academy of Music, London (2005-2016), culminating in the premiere of Il Ritorno: Perambulation for Solo Violin, sponsored by the Dartmoor National Park Authority and the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Moretonhampstead (June, 2016). This piece appears on a CD of works for solo violin and violin-viola duo, released last November on the Métier label.

A retrospective of Rose’s song cycles and solo piano music (“News of the Universe”) was presented at the National Opera Center in New York in 2015. In October 2017, Rose’s Sixth Quartet (Rousseaux) and Fourth Viola Sonata (Canticle) were premiered by the Blair String Quartet, and by violist Kathryn Plummer and pianist Craig Nies. A solo piano suite, Musica senza rumore, inspired by paintings in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome, will be premiered at the gallery this spring, under the auspices of the Rome Chamber Music Festival. Another new piece inspired by artworks is Rose’s Three Interventions, commissioned by Austin Camerata for their collaboration with the Blanton Museum of Art (a May 2018 premiere). On academic leave last fall, Rose completed his music-theatre version of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s novel Lolly Willowes for a group of wonderful singers and players in Houston, who will premiere the show this spring.

Rose’s first book, Audible Signs: Essays from a Musical Ground, was published by Continuum Books in 2010. His essays have appeared in Brooklyn Rail and Literary Imagination. He has received 30 ASCAP Plus awards. Rose is Professor of Composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He has won three university-wide teaching awards at Vanderbilt, including a Chair of Teaching Excellence.