Harvard Square Library exists solely on the basis of donations. If you have benefitted from any of our materials, and/or if making Unitarian Universalist intellectual heritage materials widely available and free is a value to you, please donate whatever you can–every little bit helps: Donate
“What I love most about composing is the contact it gives me with so many thoughtful and perceptive people — conductors, singers, instrumentalists, listeners, fellow composers, and the poets whose words I set to music. I learn something new every day.”
Biographical Introduction
Composer Elizabeth Alexander has written over 25 professionally commissioned works for orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles and solo musicians. Since earning her doctorate in composition from Cornell University, she has received grants, awards and fellowships from various national foundations. Her choral music, which has been her compositional focus for the past decade, has been performed by hundreds of choirs worldwide. Elizabeth will speak on the subject of “On Finding My Voice — or Not”. No matter who we are, there’s pressure to create ourselves into something that has a great label, whether it’s a seminal artist, a dedicated doctor, a mother of four, or the life of the party. Elizabeth will share her journey of finding her own voice and a meditation on what it is for anyone to “find their voice.”
Contemporary Information
by Elizabeth Alexander
I studied composition with Steven Stucky, Jack Gallagher, Yehudi Wyner and Karel Husa, receiving my bachelors degree from The College of Wooster and my doctorate from Cornell University. I now work as a free-lance composer of solo, choral, chamber, and orchestral music, composing for musicians of all ages and abilities. I have had public school and arts program residencies in several states, and have composed over twenty commissioned works.
In 1997 I became a businesswoman, publishing my own choral music through Seafarer Press, a venture which has become more and more rewarding each year. I now publish over 60 titles for adult, women’s, men’s, children’s and youth choirs, which are available through music dealers and stores across the country. (Read about them at www.seafarerpress.com)
Selected Performers
Orchestras: Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wooster Symphony Orchestra.
Chamber ensembles: North/South Consonance, Sounds New, Society for New Music, Women’s Works, The Music Fix Choirs: Plymouth Music Series (VocalEssence), Elmer Iseler Singers, Gregg Smith Singers, American Master Chorale, Oregon Repertory Singers, Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, Common Chords, One Voice, New Wave Singers, Harmonium, Octarium, Brookline Chorus and the entire student body of Waunakee Elementary School
Composition Highlights
- Be Grateful, My Soul
- Where There Is Light In the Soul
- We Lift Up Our Hearts
