A confident, fully-grown composing talent.
Hailed as a “confident new musical voice” (The New York Times), a “big discovery” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and a “fully-grown composing talent” (The Washington Post), Chris Rogerson’s music is often characterized by its lyricism and has been praised for its “haunting beauty” and “virtuosic exuberance” (The New York Times). Recent notable works include Of Simple Grace, for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a violin concerto, for Benjamin Beilman and the Kansas City Symphony, and Dream Sequence, for Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dover Quartet.
In addition to his work as a composer, Rogerson has achieved renown for his work as a curator. In 2026, he was named the Artistic Director of Bravo! Vail Music Festival, the fourth in the festival’s 40-year history. The festival hosts world-class artists and orchestras for six weeks each summer. Rogerson previously served as Composer-in-Residence and Artistic Advisor for the Amarillo and Allentown Symphony Orchestras, and as Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists. He also co-founded and directed Kettle Corn Music, a new music organization that presented “the ideal listening environment that so many institutions aim for: relaxed, yet allowing for concentration” (The New York Times).
An avid traveler who has visited over 120 countries around the world, Rogerson’s compositional work is frequently evocative of a sense of place: Four Autumn Landscapes, a clarinet concerto written for Anthony McGill, is a portrait of his childhood home in Buffalo, New York while String Quartet No. 4, commissioned for the Escher Quartet, draws from his experience in a remote corner of Afghanistan. His first piano concerto, Samaa', praised as "captivating" (Gramophone) and "haunting" (Minnesota Star-Tribune), was commissioned by Bravo! Vail for Anne-Marie McDermott and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and was inspired by a recent trip to Yemen. His music has been programmed at venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall in London, Prague’s Rudolfinum, Radio France, and the Musikverein in Vienna.
In 2023, he was the recipient of the Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the most prestigious honor given for chamber music composition. He has also been honored with awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Theodore Presser Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Copland House.
Rogerson also regularly collaborates with artists in other disciplines: recent examples include Sacred Earth, for mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges with video by Emmy-nominated director and National Geographic photographer Keith Ladzinski, and Azaan, a play written for the Oregon Symphony in collaboration with Dipika Guha. His work has been featured in a variety of mediums from comedian Joe Pera’s web series “How to Make It in USA” to ballet by choreographer Claudia Schreier. Other commissions and performances have come from the Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New Jersey, New World, and San Francisco symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Mr. Rogerson’s 2026-2027 season includes continuing his ongoing creative partnership with the Kansas City Symphony, where he composes his fifth new work for the orchestra, a piano concerto for Inon Barnatan conducted by Music Director Matthias Pintscher. His music also receives performances by violinist Benjamin Beilman, pianist Mika Sasaki, and the Escher Quartet.
A dedicated and passionate educator, Mr. Rogerson joined the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2016. Born in 1988, he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, and Princeton University and his mentors include Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, and Steve Mackey.
