Currently, he is composing a work for two violins and  chamber orchestra (Sunflower Music Festival premiere), as well as a piece for chamber orchestra  and speaker/tenor based on Native American legend.  A full-scholarship student at the University of North Texas, Rivers received a Bachelor of Music  degree in violin performance, studying with Robert Davidovici. He was also the recipient of the  Marjorie Fulton Memorial Fellowship (performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto). While at UNT he  was appointed concertmaster of the Denton Community Orchestra, as well as principal second  violin of the UNT Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. In addition, Rivers maintained a studio of  seventy private violin/viola students in the Plano school district. He was also violinist in over a  dozen orchestras around the state, including the Amarillo, East Texas, Garland/Las Colinas,  Richardson, Irving, Wichita Falls, Abilene, San Angelo, and Waco symphonies, and served as  Assistant Concertmaster/Principal Second in several of them. He is also featured violinist on  several albums with Earthstar Recordings/Publications.  

Rivers was born in Topeka, Kansas. The son of two professional pianist-composers, James and  Julie Rivers, he began studying violin and conducting with Everett Fetter. As a young composer  he was the first-place winner of the KMTA composition contest on two occasions. As a young  violinist he won concerto competitions with the Topeka and Omaha Symphony Orchestras,  performing Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor. Rivers continued violin studies with  Charles Stegeman, and also performed in a master class for Sol Greitzer, former principal violist  of the New York Philharmonic, after which he was invited to be the youngest member of Gerard  Schwarz’s Waterloo Festival Orchestra at Princeton University for two summers in a row.  Notable guest artists at Waterloo included conductors Maxim Shostakovich, James DePreist, and  David Atherton, as well as composer David Diamond, and pianists Andre Watts and Jorge Bolet.  Additional festival experience includes having played for two summers in the renowned  Sunflower Music Festival Orchestra.  

Rivers studied conducting at UNT with Anshel Brusilow, earning a Master of Music degree in  orchestral conducting. He was Brusilow’s orchestra librarian for two years, and he was also  accepted to the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors (Hancock, Maine). He completed the  Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City  Conservatory. His primary teachers were Zhou Long, Reynold Simpson, Paul Rudy (electronic  music), and James Mobberley (composition pedagogy). While at UMKC he mentored  undergraduate composers, and was awarded an assistantship with Zhou Long’s Musica Nova,  UMKC’s new music ensemble.