American. B. 1955 in Washington, D.C. Studied composition at the University of Pennsylvania with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick. Also at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland. Since 1999, he is Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Professor of Music at Duke University, where he taught since 1981. Jaffe co-directs Duke’s contemporary music concert series Encounters: with the Music of Our Time, and works with a inventive and gifted group of young composers. Jaffe won a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Tanglewood, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Brandeis University awarded him its Creative Arts Citation (1989), Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for First Quartet(1991. He recently completed three major concerti including a commission by the National Symphony (Leonard Slatkin, Music Director), for the orchestra s principal cellist David Hardy Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (2003). His website lists various compositions and an interview with the composer.
http://www.duke.edu/music/people/jaffe.html