Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis studied composition in San Francisco, Manhattan and at Yale with Adams, Druckman, Subotnik and Wuorinen. He employed rigorous compositional processes until the early 1980s when a growing sense of intuitive freedom became increasingly evident in his work. From 1990 his style took on a new transparency and emotional eloquence, as in the exquisite musica celestis. His is a truly eclectic musical language and he is as happy incorporating Latin rhythms and rap into his music as he is paying harmonic tribute to the Romantic masters and Hildegard von Bingen.