Hailed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as a composer of music “imbued with an extraordinary wit and intelligence”, A.J. received the Academy’s 2014 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship. He has been commissioned to write music for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. A.J.’s music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, the New Fromm Players, and by members of the Chiara Quartet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Alarm Will Sound, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. A fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Yaddo, A.J. has been a featured composer on BMOP's The Next Next series, Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series. His orchestral work Thank You for Waiting was chosen for the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, and he was subsequently awarded the 2013 Underwood Emerging Composers Commission. 

A.J. holds degrees in music from Rice University, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the University of Southern California. He has studied composition with Richard Lavenda, James MacMillan, Donald Crockett and Stephen Hartke. A passionate educator, A.J. was one of the founding instructors for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s groundbreaking Composer Fellowship Program.  He is currently an Associate Professor of Music at California State University Northridge. A native of the Boston area, A.J. lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their two children.

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