The music of Paul Elwood has been performed at the Cold Alternativa Festival of New American Music in Moscow, Russia; by Ensemble Signos, in Mexico City at the Foro International New Music Festival; at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music; June In Buffalo; the Third Practice Electroacoustic Festival; Electronic Music Midwest; and at the American Academy in Rome, where Elwood was the Southern Regional Visiting Composer.  Ensembles and performers that have given voice to his music include the North Carolina Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Tambuco (the Mexican Percussion Quartet, Mexico City), newEar (Kansas City), neoPhonia (Atlanta), the Scottish Chamber Orchestra String Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, the Callithumpian Consort of the New England Conservatory, pianist Stephen Drury, bassist Bertram Turetzky, native flutist/drummer Robert Mirabal; pipa-player Min Xiao-Fen, flutist Rachel Rudich, the Dehler String Quartet (Weimar, Germany), and the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.
          He has completed recent commissions from the North Carolina Symphony, cellist Madeleine Shapiro, bouzouki player Roger Landes, and soprano Ilana Davidson. Elwood is selected as an artist-in-residence at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, for 2008 and previous fellowships received are from the Camargo Foundation of Cassis, France (2006), the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico (2005-2006); the Frank Waters Foundation of Taos, New Mexico (2006); the Djerassi Artists Resident Program (2000 and 2003), and the MacDowell Colony (2003). Other accolades include a 2001-2002 North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship; winner of the 2000 Sigma Alpha Iota Inter-American Music Awards for a solo piano work, Vigils; and third place in the 2002 Accademia Musicale Pescarese’s Computer Music Competition “Pierre Schaeffer,” for Meadows of Flame scored for piano and MAX-driven MIDI. 

The 1986 first place winner in the Kansas State Bluegrass Banjo Championship, Elwood performs regularly in the realms of bluegrass, free improvisation, and new music. He is privileged to have played and worked with the likes of John Hartford, Eugene Chadbourne, and Hank Roberts, among others.  “Elwood is a wonderfully discreet banjo player,” stated the Buffalo News. “He played restricted scalar lines and disjunct lines with a feeling for exactness.”  And the Ann Arbor News described “the astounding Paul Elwood, who turned his banjo every which way and loose. Elwood really turned people upside-down with his no-holds barred approach, pickin’ like mad or soulfully strumming.” 

        Elwood credits teachers Donald Erb, David Felder, Walter Mays, Arthur S. Wolff, and Charles Wuorinen as major influences on his composition.  He is an associate professor of music theory and composition at Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina, where he directs A Little Now Music, an festival of new music. Elwood's music is published by C.F. Peters, Corp, Smith Publications, and Western Wear Music Publishing. email address is: pelwood at brevard.edu