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Full Bio

Curtis Rumrill is a composer, writer, educator, and organizer. His work moves between fiction, experimental music theater, opera, improvisation, performance, and instrumental chamber music. Often darkly comic, fable-like, or meta-fictional, his work has a longstanding engagement with language, storytelling, theater, and experimentation. His compositions have been performed throughout Latin America, the United States, and Europe.

Rumrill’s work with narrative and experimental performance has developed across more than two decades of instrumental, vocal, electronic, and theatrical composition. His early work includes a series of collaborations with writer Zachary Webber, among them Rover, originally composed in 2005 and later revised in 2016 for Tony Arnold, Anna Elder, and Alia Musica. His long-running collaboration with Juna Toksöz began during this period and includes Lupe Prometió a la Virgen and The Triptych, the latter performed in the United States, Switzerland, and at JazzWerkstatt Wien’s Roomservice Festival in Vienna, among others. Another collaboration with Webber from this period, the chamber work Sex Poem for Lightbulb by Beetle, has been performed in Europe and the United States.

Ensemble Dal Niente premiered The Long Hibernation in Panama City and later commissioned The Parasite, and Her Sister, performing the work at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, and Teatro Amador in Panama City. Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble premiered his forty-five-minute The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers.

His work expanded during the following years into increasingly large-scale theatrical and narrative forms. Soo Yeon Lyuh and Ashley Bathgate commissioned The Fur Rabbits of Toft Farms for haegeum and cello and premiered it at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. In 2019, Kamratōn and Quince, with Shana Simmons Dance, premiered his eighty-minute opera Her Holiness, The Winter Dog at Pittsburgh’s New Hazelett Theater. The opera continued Rumrill’s collaboration with Webber as librettist, and his interest in fictional worlds, dark comedy, and the relationship between literary and musical form.

Since 2022, his theatrical practice has evolved to encompass a series of works that blur distinctions between composition, fiction, and theater. Rage Thormbones premiered Unky Dead Bones McGringo, a forty-minute theatrical oratorio, complete with a sing-along, conceived as the service for Rumrill’s own eventual funeral. Riding the Fader, co-written and co-composed with Juna Toksöz, is an hour-long theatrical lecture-recital based on Rumrill’s short story A Tape for the End of the World and performed on an instrument built by Toksöz. It also serves as a prequel to Rumrill’s opera. Ensemble L’Itinéraire performed Abigail, Martin, the Virus and the Voice of God at UC Berkeley and Stanford, and Eco Ensemble performed his sinfonietta The Square, both based on short stories that the composer wrote.

His most recent extended projects are What the Interference Took, for performer, invented instruments, and live electronics, and The Saddest Music in the World, a forty-five-minute music-theater work for piano, clarinet, guitar, synthesizers, narration, and live electronics. What the Interference Took received its first hour-long workshop performance with Juna Toksöz at Instrument Inventors Initiative in The Hague in 2026, as part of Sound Arguments, presented by the Orpheus Instituut and Leiden University’s Academy of Creative and Performing Arts. The Saddest Music in the World received a workshop performance with Duo Riso at Elastic Arts in Chicago the same year. The work, Rumrill’s first foray into spatial audio, was composed for the venue’s 16-channel system and performed as part of the CLEAT Series. Accordionist Théo Ould has performed Solfeggio Tones in Berkeley and at TAP – Scène nationale de Grand Poitiers in France, and collective lovemusic premiered Songs of Hope at GMEM – Centre national de création musicale in Marseille, France.

Rumrill is a member of Musica ex machina at IRCAM in Paris, an interdisciplinary working group bringing together composers, performers, technologists, production staff, and humanities scholars that explores new approaches to computer-assisted composition. In 2026, he presented the group’s research at REMIX, the opening event of IRCAM’s Forum Workshops.

Throughout his career, Rumrill has also built institutions and opportunities for new music. In 2013, with Andres Carrizo and Lilliana Carrizo, he co-founded MusicArte, a festival in Panama City that served as a meeting place for Latin American new music and presented artists including Mario Lavista, Ileana Pérez-Velazquez, Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez, Ensemble Dal Niente, and the soundSCAPE Trio. As Board Chair of Alia Musica in Pittsburgh, he organized festivals, concerts, touring activity, and residencies. At UC Berkeley, as president of the Berkeley New Music Project and CNMAT Users Group, he helped organize and fund performances, visiting-ensemble residencies, and technology acquisitions. He served on the board of the SCI National Student Council where he helped organize the national student conference in 2021.

Alongside his artistic career, Rumrill has spent more than two decades as a labor and community organizer. Beginning with anti-sweatshop organizing while a student at Syracuse University, his work has included environmental-justice organizing in Syracuse, housing organizing with public-housing residents in post-Katrina New Orleans, and organizing healthcare workers in Pennsylvania. As Western Pennsylvania Staff Representative for the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, he represented more than 900 healthcare workers, bargained contracts as a first-chair negotiator, led strikes, and handled grievances, arbitrations, and labor-board proceedings. He later served as a department steward in UAW Local 4811 during a period that included the largest strike of academic workers in U.S. history. He currently serves as West Coast Local Representative for the NewsGuild of New York, focusing on internal organizing and member representation, including at ProPublica. In 2022, he presented “Music Scholars and Labor Unions” at the joint AMS/SEM/SMT meeting.

As an educator, Rumrill has taught extensively at UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His teaching spans music theory and analysis, electronic music composition, MAX/MSP, writing about music, and interdisciplinary courses on creativity, AI, and innovation. At Berkeley, he developed Music 57—Introduction to Electronic Music Composition, guiding the course through the university approval process; it is now part of the Department of Music’s regular offerings. His teaching emphasizes experimentation, creative risk-taking, skill-building, and the development of each student’s individual voice.

Rumrill has received the Alfred Hertz Memorial Traveling Scholarship, supporting his work at IRCAM; the UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award; the Nicola De Lorenzo Prize in Music Composition; and the Nicholas C. Christofilos Jr. Memorial Prize. He graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Music in composition, with a minor in music history and performance honors in classical guitar, and holds a Master of Music in composition from Bowling Green State University. His primary composition teachers have been Carmine Cella, Mu-Xuan Lin, Myra Melford, Elainie Lillios, and Daniel Godfrey. He is Professor of Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Doctoral Candidate in Music Composition at UC Berkeley.

Medium Bio

Curtis Rumrill is a composer, writer, educator, and organizer. His work moves between fiction, experimental music theater, opera, improvisation, performance, and instrumental chamber music. Often darkly comic, fable-like, or meta-fictional, his work has been performed throughout Latin America, the United States, and Europe.

Across more than two decades, Rumrill’s work has increasingly brought literary and theatrical forms into conversation with instrumental and electronic music. Ensemble Dal Niente commissioned The Parasite, and Her Sister and performed it on tour in Mexico, Colombia, and Panama; Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble premiered the concert-length The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers; and Soo Yeon Lyuh and Ashley Bathgate commissioned The Fur Rabbits of Toft Farms, premiering it at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. His opera Her Holiness, The Winter Dog was performed by Kamratōn and Quince with Shana Simmons Dance.

More recent works include Abigail, Martin, the Virus and the Voice of God, for Ensemble L’Itinéraire; The Square, for Eco Ensemble; and the experimental music-theater works Riding the Fader, co-written and co-composed with Juna Toksöz; What the Interference Took also with Toksöz; The Saddest Music in the World with Duo Riso; and Unky Dead Bones McGringo for Rage Thormbones.

Rumrill is a member of Musica ex machina at IRCAM in Paris, an interdisciplinary research group that explores new approaches to computer-assisted composition. He presented the group’s research at IRCAM’s Forum Workshops in 2026. Recent European activity also includes a workshop of What the Interference Took at Instrument Inventors Initiative in The Hague in The Netherlands, a performance of Solfeggio Tones by accordionist Théo Ould in Poitiers, France, and the premiere of Songs of Hope by collective lovemusic at GMEM in Marseille, France.

He co-founded MusicArte Panama, and served as Board Chair of Alia Musica in Pittsburgh. He served on the board of the SCI National Student Council where he helped organize the national student conference in 2021. At UC Berkeley he organized ensemble residencies, performances and technology acquisitions.

Alongside his artistic work, Rumrill has spent more than two decades as a labor and community organizer. His work includes anti-sweatshop and environmental-justice campaigns and post-Katrina housing organizing. He represented more than 900 healthcare workers as Western Pennsylvania Staff Representative for PASNAP and currently serves as West Coast Local Representative for the NewsGuild of New York, representing journalists and other media workers, including at ProPublica. He has presented on music and labor organizing at AMS/SEM/SMT.

Rumrill has received the Alfred Hertz Memorial Traveling Scholarship, the UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, the Nicola De Lorenzo Prize in Music Composition, and the Nicholas C. Christofilos Jr. Memorial Prize. His primary composition teachers have been Carmine Cella, Mu-Xuan Lin, Myra Melford, Elainie Lillios, and Daniel Godfrey. He is Professor of Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Doctoral Candidate in Music Composition at UC Berkeley.

Short Bio

Curtis Rumrill is a composer, writer, educator, and organizer. His work moves between fiction, experimental music theater, opera, improvisation, performance, and instrumental chamber music. Often darkly comic, fable-like, or meta-fictional, his work has been performed throughout Latin America, the United States, and Europe.

His work includes the opera Her Holiness, The Winter Dog and the experimental music-theater works What the Interference Took, Riding the Fader, Unky Dead Bones McGringo, and The Saddest Music in the World. His music has been commissioned, premiered, and performed by Ensemble L’Itinéraire, Ensemble Dal Niente, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Rage Thormbones, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Ashley Bathgate, Théo Ould, collective lovemusic, Juna Toksöz, Duo Riso, and others.

Rumrill is a member of Musica ex machina at IRCAM in Paris, an interdisciplinary research group that explores new approaches to computer-assisted composition. Alongside his artistic work, he is a longtime labor and community organizer and currently serves as West Coast Local Representative for the NewsGuild of New York representing journalists and other media workers, including at ProPublica. He is Professor of Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Doctoral Candidate in Music Composition at UC Berkeley.

Blurb

Curtis Rumrill is a composer, writer, educator, and organizer whose work moves between fiction, experimental music theater, opera, improvisation, performance, and instrumental chamber music. His compositions have been performed throughout Latin America, the United States, and Europe. He is a member of Musica ex machina at IRCAM in Paris, Professor of Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Doctoral Candidate in Music Composition at UC Berkeley.