Short Biography
Aaron Kerr is a cellist and composer from St. Paul, whose music is a cross between jazz, minimalist classical, and rock. He performs as a soloist and with many artists and ensembles in the Twin Cities. Aaron's music can be found on over fifty albums nationally and internationally, including several solo albums.
Long Biography
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Aaron spent his youth exploring any kind of music he could get his hands on. He learned cello under the private instruction of Omaha Symphony players Patricia Ritchie and Greg Clinton, and was mentored by jazz greats Rob Glaser and Luigi Waites. He also studied piano, bass guitar, and classical guitar. In high school, he played cello and bass in the high school orchestra, jazz band, and pit orchestra. He was part of the Omaha Youth Symphony and played in a variety of other rock and jazz ensembles, as well as a studio orchestra and professional big band.
In 1990, Aaron received a scholarship to study music at Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana. There he studied cello with Allen Nisbet and played for the Loyola Symphony, as well as several small ensembles. At Loyola, Aaron studied music composition with composers Stephen Dankner, William Horne, Sylvia Pengilly, and Sandy Henderlie. In 1994, he received his first composition award, from The Music Educators National Conference, for his “Sketches for Cello and Piano.” He performed the composition at their convention in Cincinnati, Ohio the same year. His achievements were recognized at Loyola with an award from the composition faculty and an award from his peers, who voted him best string player in the orchestra. Aaron graduated magna cum laude, with a bachelor's degree in music composition and theory.
In 1995, Aaron moved to Minnesota to refine his composing skills and work with as many musical groups as possible. He received an American Composers Forum New Music Series Grant in 1999, and a Composer Teaching Residency from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2000. In 2006, while finishing work on his first solo album, Arco 71, Aaron was awarded a McKnight Composer Fellowship in recognition of his abilities.
Aaron's second project, a collaboration with artists Jeff Crandall and Tyson Allison, led to Dissonant Creatures. This album utilized the electric cello, an instrument that fundamentally changed Aaron’s approach to writing and performing. He then explored the use of cello across genres with both his folk-classical crossover work, Union County Forever, and his jazz exploration, Odin. He assembled Aaron Kerr's Dissonant Creatures to play his compositions, and the ensemble went on their first tour in 2009. They've continued to perform across the Midwest, and will tour three states in 2025 alongside the release of their first full-length album, Scorpio Rising.
In addition to his solo work, Aaron has been involved in many side projects. He's been a member of several groups: Todd Harper’s Musical Ecology; the electronic-based Heavy Pedal Cello; experimental jazz ensembles JazZen and SingleCell; the poetry and music collective Sonoglyph; and the rock and blues bands, Swallows and J. Briozo. In 2020, Aaron and Tyson Allison (of Heavy Pedal Cello) received an Independent Music Awards nomination for Concept Album of the Year with their collaborative album, To Combat Loneliness: Compositions Based on the Works of David Foster Wallace.
Aaron regularly works with many artists and performs numerous concerts throughout the year. He composes, arranges and records all styles of music, and can be heard on over fifty albums nationally and internationally. It is Aaron’s constant goal to elevate art and create a world of amazing music.