Rolv Yttrehus, born March 12th, 1926, in Duluth, Minnesota. He studied with Ross Lee Finney, Nadia Boulanger, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, and Goffredo Petrassi. His honors include a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

His music has been performed on the ISCM World Music Days USA, by The Juilliard Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, The Group for Contemporary Music, Parnassus, Speculum Musicae, Ensemble 21, and the Cygnus Ensemble.

His Gradus Ad Parnassum was recorded by The Louisville Orchestra, with soprano Catherine Rowe conducted by Peter Leonard. Mr. Yttrehus lectured on this work at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany in 1994. His Espressioni Per Orchestra received critical acclaim after its performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Augsburg, Germany in 1996.

The Warsaw National Philharmonic, conducted by Joel Suben, performed Mr.Yttrehus’s Symphony Number One, on the Warsaw Autumn Festival in September, 1998. It was recorded by that orchestra and by the Polish National Radio Orchestra.

In 2006 The Washington Square Contemporary Music Society performed Laudate Milton Babbitt for violin and clarinet, and the New York New Music Ensemble premiered an earlier version of Sextet II. He is now Professor of Music Emeritus at Rutgers University.