On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer, violist, and educator Kurt Rohde (they/he).

Kurt lives and works in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. Their practice is animated by the question of how “failure” and “catastrophe” can be folded into the pursuit of beauty. They serve as Artistic Advisor with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Artistic Director of the Composers Conference, and teach composition at UC Davis. Honors include the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute and Guggenheim Foundation, and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, Koussevitzky, New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and Creative Capital. Kurt also leads initiatives that open doors for composers at different stages of life and access — from Pathways and the Left Coast Commission Fund to The Farewell Tour Project, commissioning new works for viola.

In this conversation, Kurt traces an artistic life that began with home-grown notation experiments on the viola and widened through formative mentorships, a reset in contemporary performance at Stony Brook, and a return to composing in San Francisco. They and Tyler talk about collaboration as a lifeline, rebuilding institutions with more transparent and humane processes, and what it takes to make work that feels honest in public. Kurt reflects on how visual art and graphic notation have shaped their scores over time in surprising ways; how teaching, listening, and community inform their values; and why sincerity — even when it risks failure — remains the core of their practice.

Kurt is online at https://www.kurtrohde.com/

music/Maker episodes release every other Thursday!

Listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.

Subscribe to the Loose Leaf Transmissions newsletter for new episodes, behind-the-scenes updates, and ways to support the work: