Aaron’s music has been performed by major ensembles in several countries, including the Nieuw Ensemble (NL), orkest de ereprijs (NL), the Ensemble contemporain de Montreal (CA), the Nouvel ensemble moderne (CA), Tapestry New Opera Works (CA), Toca Loca (CA), Continuum (CA), the Knights Orchestra (US), the London Sinfonietta (UK), and the Arditti Quartet (UK). His music has been broadcast on CBC Radio/Radio-Canada.

Prominent festivals have presented Aaron’s work, including Amsterdam’s prestigious Gaudeamus Music Week; Toronto’s New Wave, soundaXis, and SHIFT festivals; Aberdeen’s Sound Festival; and New York’s MATA Festival. He was additionally selected as a representative for Canada in the 2008 World Music Days in Lithuania. One of his solo pieces, Flüsse-Einflüsse, was chosen as a required exam piece for the graduating accordion students at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik – Trossingen in 2006.

Aaron was selected as the winner of the orkest de ereprijs’s International Young Composers Competition in the Netherlands in 2009. He has also received various other awards and grants, including an ASCAP Gould Award (2010), six prizes in Canada’s SOCAN Awards for Young Composers (2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2004), a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award (2008), a SOCAN residency grant (2006), and numerous commissioning, travel, project, and study grants.

Long-term musical directions in Aaron’s composing include a focus on rhythm and time, a preoccupation with the social and cultural factors that influence listening and taste, an interest in found materials, an exploration of what in fact constitutes creativity, and a fascination with the ways that social technologies are changing listening habits, to name a few. His music incorporates a wide range of palettes, from rich microtonal textures and shimmering timbres to bright chipper counterpoint, upbeat rhythmic drive, blunt musical gestures, and light-hearted humour.

• Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioning Grant (Other Minds Festival, San Francisco)

• SOCAN Awards for Young Composers: Godfrey Ridout Award (Vocal Music), third prize

• Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioning Grant (Tapestry New Opera)

• ASCAP Foundation, Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, honorable mention

• Canada Council for the Arts, Travel Grant

• Dilettante, International Digital Composer-in-Residence Competition (London, UK), finalist

• SOCAN Awards for Young Composers: Godfrey Ridout Award (Vocal Music), first prize

• Alberta Creative Development Initiative Grant

• Canada Council for the Arts Commissioning Grant (Ensemble Resonance, Calgary)

• orkest de ereprijs Young Composers Competition, first prize

• Canada Council for the Arts, Travel Grant

• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award

• SOCAN Awards for Young Composers: Serge Garant Award (Chamber Music), third prize

• Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Music Project Grant

• Culture no.3 selected by the ISCM Canadian Section as part of their submission to the 2008 ISCM World Music Days in Lithuania

• Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioning Grant (Toca Loca, Toronto)

• International Gaudeamus Music Week, Amsterdam, finalist

• Canada Council for the Arts, Grant to Professional Musicians

• SOCAN Awards for Young Composers: Pierre Mercure Award (Solo or Duet), first prize

• Canada Council for the Arts, Grant to Professional Musicians

• UC San Diego, Travel Grant

• SOCAN Foundation, Composer Residency Grant (Ensemble contemporain de Montréal)

• Neil D. Graham and William Erving Fairclough Graduating Scholarships (University of Toronto)

• SOCAN Awards for Young Composers:

• George Coutts and Gwendolyn Grant Academic Scholarships (University of Toronto)

• TrypTych Toronto Young Composers’ Competition, first prize

• Monica Ryckman and Ben McPeek Academic Scholarships (University of Toronto)

• Jazz Band Most Valuable Member Award (Grant MacEwan College)

• Louise McKinney Scholarship and entrance scholarship (Grant MacEwan College)

• Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Study Grant

• Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Study Grant

Copy­right has always had two roles, to pro­tect the rights of the cre­ator, but more broadly, to encour­age cre­ativ­ity. With­out copy­right, artists would never be prop­erly rewarded for their work and art would not get made. But with­out fair deal­ing pro­vi­sions (or fair use in the U.S.), copy­right law stran­gles cre­ativ­ity by making art­works inaccessible.

Over the past 100 years, cor­po­rate inter­ests have increas­ingly tried to restrict or remove fair deal­ing from copy­right. Copy­right in 1900 was only 14 years long and had to be offi­cially requested. This meant that artists at the time could draw on a huge store of rel­a­tively fresh mate­r­ial in their work, lead­ing to the explo­sion of cre­ativ­ity that marked the birth of Hol­ly­wood, the avant-garde, jazz, and more. Now copy­right is auto­matic, can last over 150 years, and legit­i­mate works that use fair deal­ing are fre­quently attacked in court by cor­po­rate inter­ests. This trend has only accel­er­ated with the rise of dig­i­tal music tech­nol­ogy and file sharing.

For this reason, Recy­cled 80s Live draws entirely from mate­r­ial still under copy­right, with­out per­mis­sion. This can be done under fair deal­ing as long as the new work cre­ates new artis­tic value and does not take away from the market for the orig­i­nals. I designed Recy­cled 80s Live to respect these bound­aries, work­ing within the tra­di­tion of mash-up artists such as John Oswald or Girl Talk, but with live musi­cians. My mes­sage, to adapt an old adage, is that your right to swing your copy­right ends where my music begins.