In recent years Roberto Sierra's works have received much attention both in North America and in Europe. Sierra came to prominence in 1987, when his first major orchestral composition, Júbilo, was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. His works have since been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and Phoenix Symphony, as well as by the American Composers Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra (Zürich), National Orchestra of Barcelona, Symphony Orchestra of Galicia, the Kronos Quartet, Continuum, Germany's Radio Orchestras from Saarland and Frankfurt, England's BBC Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and at Wolf Trap, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Festival Casals, France's Festival de Lille, and others. His Sinfonía No. 1, a work commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, won the 2004 Kenneth Davenport Competition for Orchestral Works. For the 2004-2005 season Sierra is the Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with the New Mexico Symphony. Recently, the Detroit Symphony commissioned and premiered his Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra, which will be performed this academic year by the Cornell Symphony Orchestra with soloist James Carter. In 2003 he was awarded the Academy Award in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award states: "Roberto Sierra writes brilliant music, mixing fresh and personal melodic lines with sparkling harmonies and striking rhythms. . ."

Roberto Sierra's teaching at Cornell focuses mainly on composition, although his interests extend also to theory, orchestration, and analysis. Sierra has taught composition at the graduate and undergraduate levels, orchestration, undergraduate theory, music history survey, and seminars on the works of Messiaen and Ligeti. Currently, he is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Cornell's Department of Music (DUS).

Photo: Frank DiMeo, Cornell University Photography