Andrew McManus (b. 1985) is currently a senior at Yale College in New Haven, CT, where he is pursuing the intensive major in Music.  Next year he will continue his studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  His composition teachers at Yale include Kathryn Alexander, John Halle, Mark Dancigers, Michael Klingbeil and Matthew Suttor.  Most recently he received the Beekman Cannon Friends of Music Prize and Abraham Beekman Cox Prize, both from the Yale Music Department.  He also received an ASCAPlus award and an Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship to attend the Norfolk Contemporary Music Workshop in June 2006, where he studied with Martin Bresnick and Alejandro Viñao.  In addition, Mr. McManus has received numerous finalist distinctions and one Honorable Mention (1999) from the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.  He also received Honorable Mentions from the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts (NGCSA, 2002) and Collage New Music (2000). 

During the 2006-2007 academic year Mr. McManus was President and Principal Viola of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, which has performed arrangements of his that range from an Alma Mahler Lied to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.  He was also Principal Viola of the Berkeley College Orchestra, which premiered his “Lamentations of Orfeo” in February 2006.  A native of Massachusetts, Mr. McManus studied composition, piano and viola at both Phillips Academy in Andover, MA and at the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division in Boston. His past composition teachers include Michael Gandolfi and Rodney Lister. His work has been performed in concerts at Yale, Phillips Academy and NEC. His composition for electronics, "Di Tre Re: Homage to Honegger" was featured on Czech Radio 3 ("Vltava") on May 14, 2007 as a winner of the Musica Nova 2006 electronic music competition.  In addition, his arrangement of an Alma Mahler Lied for the Yale Symphony Orchestra appeared on Connecticut's WNPR radio on July 15, 2007.