Aaron Petit (25) is an American pianist and composer in Portland, Oregon. In 2020, he completed his undergraduate degree in keyboard (piano) performance Magna Cum Laude at the University of Miami: Frost School of Music under the guidance of Santiago Rodriguez and Naoko Takao.
Since 2014, Aaron has won 9 piano competitions in the US including the Gershwin International Music Competition in NYC, the Seattle
Philharmonic Don Bushell Concerto Competition (runner-up), Metro Arts Van Buren Concerto Competition, and the Portland Young Pianists
Festival Competition. He has performed with orchestras in Seattle, Portland, Salem, Renton, and Puyallup since making his debut at age 15 with
Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In the 2016-17 season, he performed Chopin's e minor Piano Concerto with musicians of the Oregon Symphony and Oregon Ballet Theater Orchestras with Maestro Niel DePonte.
Aaron previously studied privately with Mark Westcott in Portland, Oregon who was a large part of his musical development between 2015 and 2020. Before that, he attended Seattle Conservatory of Music under Mark Salman and the Colburn School: Young Artists Academy in Los Angeles. An avid teacher himself, Aaron has taught over 80 full time students since 2011.
As a composer, his work for a 5-part chamber ensemble was premiered in October 2018 at the University of Miami. He was commissioned to write the main theme for Luminescence, an indy video game which was featured at the the Portland Retro Gaming Expo that same month. Only a few months after the first Covid-19 shutdown, Aaron connected virtually with four other musicians spread throughout the country to write a camber piece entitled “Seattle Rain”. This work was virtually debuted on May 6th, 2020 at the University of Miami over Zoom.
Aaron’s long term ambitions are to express his love for the great musical arts through teaching, performing, and writing music of his own.
