Yotam Haber, was born in Holland and is a citizen of Israel and the United States. He grew up in Milwaukee, and attended Indiana University, studying with Eugene O’Brien and Claude Baker. He completed a doctorate in composition at Cornell University in 2004, studying with Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky. He spent 2000 in Bologna, Italy, as part of the Course on Use of Live Electronics, taught by Alvise Vidolin (Luigi Nono’s sound engineer) and the composer Adriano Guarnieri. He received a 2002 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Award for his chamber orchestra work, In Sleep a King, and one in 2004 for his double clarinet quintet, Blur. In 2004, he also won the second bi-annual ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize for the wind ensemble work, Espresso, which was performed at Carnegie Hall by Rutgers Wind Ensemble, directed by William Berz, and consequently recorded for release in the fall of 2006. He has been a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (studying with George Benjamin and Osvaldo Golijov), the Aspen Music Festival (studies with Chris Rouse and Nicholas Maw), and been in residence at the Aaron Copland House, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His music has been performed in Germany, Italy, Holland, and across the U.S. Haber currently resides in New York City and Rome and is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow.
Haber received the 2007-2008 Frederic A. Juilliard/ Walter Damrosch Rome Prize and resided at the American Academy in Rome for a year beginning in September 2007. He has recently been commissioned by architect Peter Zumthor and his wife Annalisa to compose two works for premiere in Vals, Switzerland, 2009. From the American Composers Forum and the Jerome Composers Commissioning Program, he received a commission to write for MAYA.
Haber is the newly appointed artistic director of MATA, the non-profit organization that has, for the past thirteen years, been dedicated to commissioning and presenting works by young composers from around the world.
In March-May 2009 and March 2010, he was in residence at the MacDowell Colony, the recipient of the first ASCAP Foundation Composer Fellowship.
2010 commission from Meet the Composer to write a new chamber orchestra piece for the NYC-based Knights Ensemble.