Musician Kurt Rohde plays viola, teaches and composes. He lives in San Francisco with his husband Tim and their dog Hendrix. In addition to enjoying double IPAs, off-beat films, and long distant running, he plays viola and is Artistic Advisor with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Artistic Director of the Composers Conference, a curator at the Center for New Music, and teaches music composition at UC Davis. He has received the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, fellowships from the Radcliffe-Harvard Institute for Advanced Study and Guggenheim Foundation, and awards from American Academy of Arts and Letters, Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations.

Recent projects include a new works for the Hidejiro Honjoh, Lydian String Quartet, the Grossman Ensemble, and Ensemble Échappé. His CD, It wasn’t a dream… , was released on Albany Records in Spring 2020.

Kurt has spearheaded two initiatives to help create opportunities for composers: The Kurt Rohde Composers Fund is a commission project supporting composers at different stages of their creative life, and Kurt Rohde’s Farewell Tour Project - PARTS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 targets underappreciated creative voices in the new music community.