Timothy McCormack's music centers on the idea that sound has mass and is experienced as a physical object. His work also aims to create intimate social environments which prioritize communication, listening and responsibility towards one another.

He has been commissioned by ensembles and organizations such as the ELISION Ensemble, Ensemblekollektiv Berlin, Klangforum Wien, the JACK Quartet, musikFabrik, the [Switch~ Ensemble], the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, and the RMIT University Sonic Arts Collection. His music has also been performed by Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble SurPlus, the Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Nikel, and ensemble hand werk and programmed on the Wien Modern, Darmstadt, Huddersfield, Maerzmusik, Witten, TRANSIT, Tzlil Meudcan, and Weimar festivals.

 

McCormack is the recipient of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers' Prize 2018. He has won the George Arthur Knight Prize in 2014 from Harvard University for his piece you actually are evaporating. In 2017, he won the John Green Fellowship for his “demonstrated talent and promise as a composer” from Harvard University, as well as the Impuls International Composition Competition, which results in a commission for a new piece for chamber ensemble from Vienna’s Klangforum Wien to be premiered in 2019.

McCormack is a PhD candidate at Harvard University, where he studies with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku. He also studied at the University of Huddersfield with Aaron Cassidy and Liza Lim as well as at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Lewis Nielson and Randolph Coleman. He participated in the Schloss Solitude Sommerakademie in 2009, and the Tzlil Meudcan Summer Courses in 2012. He has studied in masterclass or private lesson settings with Steven Takasugi, Roger Reynolds, Mark André, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Amnon Wolman, Jason Eckardt, Olga Neuwirth and Philippe Manoury, and has given presentations on his music at Wesleyan University, the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, and the Universität der Künste Berlin.

From 2014-17 at Harvard University, he was the director of the Harvard Group for New Music, organizing concerts and residencies with ensembles such as Ensemble Dal Niente, the JACK Quartet, Ensemble Recherche, musikFabrik, the ELISION Ensemble, and many others. In addition to music, McCormack has also studied contemporary dance with Jill Johnson and has worked in masterclass or choreographic settings with William Forsythe, John Jasperse, Christopher Roman and Riley Watts.