AARON J. DERWIN II

Aaron J. Derwin II is a multidisciplinary artist from Frederick, Maryland, now based in New York City. Currently, Aaron is a fourth year undergraduate composition student at The Juilliard School, studying under Dr. Amy Beth Kirsten. 

Aaron’s journey to music is anything but conventional. After a lifetime devoted to athletics, and with no prior formal or informal musical training, he redirected his focus to composition just eighteen months before applying to Juilliard. Throughout his early life, he was deeply immersed in sports, particularly football, where he developed a strong sense of focus, resilience, and structure. Following high school, he had accepted an opportunity to play Division I football, continuing a family legacy that included a father who also competed at that level. Choosing to step away from that path marked a decisive and transformative turning point, as he embraced a completely new discipline and began pursuing an artistic life with intensity and purpose. What began as a bold and uncertain transition quickly evolved into a profound sense of clarity, as Aaron discovered in composition a space where he felt both challenged and fully at home.

Recently, Aaron was a winner of the 2025-2026 Juilliard Orchestra Competition. As part of this recognition, the Juilliard Orchestra will premiere his work Gravitywell Gallery at Alice Tully Hall, in the spring of 2026.

Aaron’s musical voice is shaped by a deep and ongoing engagement with photography and film, which play a central role in informing his approach to structure, pacing, and atmosphere. Rather than thinking of music in purely sonic terms, Aaron often approaches composition through a visual and theatrical lens, considering how moments unfold, linger, and interact over time. He is especially drawn to static visual art for its relationship to time and perception, and its ability to present itself fully, allowing the viewer to absorb both the whole and its finest details simultaneously. This idea of simultaneity has become a guiding principle in his work, as he seeks to translate that experience into sound, crafting music that invites listeners to exist within multiple layers of time, texture, and meaning at once.

Beyond concert music, Aaron is currently developing a large scale installation work that integrates music, visuals, and writing, centered on questions of learning, perception, and the ways individuals process and internalize information. This project reflects his broader interest in creating immersive environments that extend beyond traditional performance settings, inviting audiences to engage with art in a more active and exploratory way.

His artistic practice extends across a wide range of mediums, including painting, set design, 2D animation, poetry, scriptwriting, and prop design. Rather than treating these disciplines as separate, Aaron approaches them as interconnected languages, each offering its own tools for expression and storytelling. Through this multidisciplinary approach, he continues to explore how different forms can intersect, inform, and reshape one another, ultimately expanding the possibilities of his work and the experiences it can create.