Student conductor, brown hair in a bun, black button up collared shirt, directing concert ban with baton against dark background.

Kurt Rohde

Man stands before seated chamber musicians in warm-lit wooden rehearsal room

Professor of Music
(On Sabbatical, Fall 2026)

  • Music
he/him/his
Room 1109, Music Annex

Musician Kurt Rohde plays viola, teaches, and composes. Kurt lives in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land with spouse Tim Allen and their dog Hendrix. Rohde is Artistic Advisor with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Artistic Director of the Composers Conference, and teaches Music Composition and Theory 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 the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Barlow, Fromm, and Hanson Foundations, New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and the NEA. Kurt is the 2024 recipient of a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission in Memory of Andrew W. Imbrie from The Library of Congress. Rohde has spearheaded several initiatives to help create opportunities for gifted composers who do not have access to traditional paths to success.

Professor Rohde’s teaching philosophy reflects the symbiotic relationship between scholarship and practice—how one composes, performs, investigates, and communicates. He is committed to the practice of diversity and equity in the field of music and the academic community at large, and believes that the pluralism of our society and culture is a strength that must be nurtured and explored.

Awards and Honors

  • Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress Commission Award, 1999, 2024
  • New Music USA Creator Fund, 2017, 2024
  • National Endowment for the Arts Commission Award, 2022
  • Creative Capital Award, 2022
  • Chamber Music America Classical Commission Award, 2018
  • Fromm Foundation of Harvard University Commission Award, 1999, 2015
  • Academy Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2015
  • Barlow Endowment for Music Composition Commission Award, 2001, 2007, 2012
  • Radcliffe-Harvard Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship, 2012–13
  • UC Davis Jan & Beta Popper Fellowship, 2014–2017
  • UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellowship, 2012–16
  • Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize, 2012
  • Meet the Composer Commissioning Music/USA Commission Award, 2011
  • American Academy in Rome, Elliott Carter Rome Prize in Music Composition, 2008–09
  • Charles Ives Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2008
  • Walter Hinrichsen Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2003
  • Berlin Prize Fellowship, American Academy in Berlin, 2003
  • Hanson Institute for American Music Commission Award, 2002
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, 2000
  • First Prize, Lydian String Quartet Composition Contest, 1999