Timothy McCormack [b. 1984; Cleveland, OH] is a composer currently based in Chicago, IL. His musical thought is largely informed by his conviction that an aural experience is a profoundly subjective one, and his music seeks to heighten this facet in performative contexts. Dealing with issues of perception, density, contextualization and the performer-instrument apparatus, his music behaves obsessively, using a limited syntax to explore a highly contained territory while utilizing unceasingly frenetic aural textures. Focusing on the microscopic but violent space between a finger and a string or a tongue and a reed, McCormack's music dissects and autonomizes the modes of sound production and the physical relationship between performer and instrument, to create a complex, destabilized, and ever-changing aural terrain.

McCormack has been performed and commissioned by a number of eminent contemporary music specialists, including the ELISION Ensemble, Ensemble SurPlus, the JACK Quartet, the Formalist Quartet, Richard Haynes, Andrew McIntosh, Steve Menotti, Mark Menzies, Steve Parker and Xenia Pestova. His works have been performed throughout the world, with notable performances in Australia, Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, New Zealand and throughout the United States.

McCormack studied with Aaron Cassidy and Liza Lim at Huddersfield University [UK], where he researched instrumental mechanism and physicality as compositional resources. He attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with Lewis Nielson and Randolph Coleman. In 2009, he was awarded a stipend to attend the Schloss Solitude Sommerakademie, where he studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Claus Steffen-Mahnkopf and Mark Andre. In addition, he has studied in masterclass or private lesson settings with Jason Eckardt, Olga Neuwirth, and Philippe Manoury. In 2011, he will begin PhD studies at Harvard University under the guidance of Chaya Czernowin.