American composer and violinist Cyrano Jett Rosentrater, a Philadelphia native, is a musical dramatist, a restless inventor, a questioner of concert rituals, and an artist who writes and performs with the belief that music should command the room, challenge the familiar, and help those who hear it.
Celebrated as "someone who, in terms of his imagination, is constantly living at the boundaries" [Carnegie Hall], Cyrano's work collides emotional danger, theatrical wit, and cultural memory within intimate arcs. Driven by a mission to uplift his audiences, Cyrano is devoted to creating music that captivates, challenges, and moves listeners; his music has been described by NPR as “energizing, electrifying, magnetic."
The 2026–27 season contains a wide range of performances, including the premiere of his arrangement of Esteban Salas y Castro's Magnificat for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the premiere of his string quartet the soft brown earth at the Yellow Barn Festival, a new commission for violin and samba ensemble (to be performed at Lincoln Center with Harlem Samba and himself as soloist), as well as a new two-piano commission for the 5th International MusicOn Festival, to be premiered at The Blanc alongside an interdisciplinary arts exhibition.
Cyrano's music has been featured by organizations including NPR, Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, ASCAP, Sphinx, and WRTI 90.1 FM. He has received commissions from the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, the Philadelphia Ballet, and the Kennedy Center. Cyrano moves fluidly between composition and performance, with appearances as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral concertmaster at Marian Anderson Hall, the Chicago, Nashville, and Detroit Symphony Centers, the Mann Center, the Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School. His music has been performed at the National Opera Center, Dr. Phillips Center for the Arts, The Blanc, ArtShare L.A., the Chamber Music Festival of the Black Hills, and others. It has been described by composer Ketty Nez as “full of color, humour, wit, and pizzazz,” while violinist Peter Zazofsky praised him for “playing brilliantly with something to say.”
Cyrano's honors include the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, a National YoungArts Award in Classical Music/Violin, semifinalist recognition in the Sphinx Competition, the Primavera Fund Scholarship, the Marian Anderson Young Artist Grant, and inaugural membership in the Philadelphia All-City Ballet Composers’ Fellowship. He has also served as concertmaster of the National Pathways Festival Orchestra and is an ambassador for Harmony for Peace.
A Philadelphia native and product of the city’s public-school music community, Cyrano is a Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School.
His recent mentors include John Corigliano, Ronald Copes, Kimberly Fisher, and Thomas Weaver.
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