About

Rory Bricca (b. 2004) is a composer from Tucson, AZ, currently based in New Haven, CT. His music explores the intersections of music with science, visual art, and internet absurdism, drawing inspiration from sources as seemingly incompatible as J. S. Bach, Igor Stravinsky, jazz fusion, space-time relativity, M. C. Escher, and even Bill Wurtz (creator of history of the entire world, i guess). By resisting conventional distinctions between high and low art, he seeks to create music that moves freely between intellectual inquiry and play, the profound and the ridiculous, the familiar and the unexpected. Much of his work embraces excess, theatricality, and unapologetic absurdity, pushing musical ideas to comically over-the-top extremes. He is interested not only in expanding the boundaries of musical language, but also in reimagining what a concert experience can be.

His music has been performed by the Boston Pops, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Brevard Music Center Orchestra, Now Ensemble, Yale Glee Club, and Yale Wind Ensemble, and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Brevard Music Festival, Interlochen Arts Festival, Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Arizona State Music Teachers Association Conference. It won the 2025 Brevard Performance Prize.

This May, Rory graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied a broad range of subjects beyond music, including astronomy, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy, searching in unusual places for new musical inspiration. This interdisciplinary work won him the 2026 Richard B. Sewall Cup for "outstanding scholarly achievement and creative promise" and public praise by Yale University President Maurie McInnis.

His works for saxophone quartet have received recognition from leading classical saxophonists across the country and are published by Murphy Music Press. He is beginning to write new saxophone works for the national competition-winning Synchrony Quartet and for a solo album by Christopher Tejeda. He is also scoring A Life Abstract, a 30-minute documentary film about a Tucson, Arizona-based visual artist.

Outside of composing, Rory is a classical and jazz pianist and music educator, teaching at Neighborhood Music School and growing a private piano studio in New Haven, CT. He is also a choral singer, organist, French horn player, and on occasion, South Indian Karṇāṭak musician, or Tuvan throat singer. He has six toes on his left foot.