Meet the Composers
Alex Shapiro
Alex Shapiro, composer, aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them will actually sound good next to each other. Her persistence at this activity, as well as non-fiction music writing, arts advocacy, public speaking, wildlife photography, and the shameless instigation of insufferable puns, has led to a happy life. Ever-boastful of her terminal degree of a high school diploma (an impressive feat having failed 8th grade algebra), Alex lives in the middle of nowhere on a small rock between the coasts of Washington State and British Columbia, and draws from a broad musical palette that giddily ignores genre. Her acoustic and electroacoustic works are published by her company, Activist Music LLC, have won almost no awards, are performed and broadcast daily, have rarely been reviewed, and can be found on over forty commercial releases from record labels around the world. No musician or audience member has yet to contact Alex to request their money back. Emphasis on yet. In addition to lavish customer refund policies, Ms. Shapiro is noted for her seamless melding of live and recorded sounds, and for her innovative uses of multimedia in performance and music education. A widely published advocate on topics ranging from technology, copyright, diversity, and the music business, and a likable person from whom you can learn details about python breeding, Alex is the Symphonic and Concert writer member of the Board of Directors of ASCAP, and serves on the Board of Directors of the ASCAP Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Music Publishers Association of the United States, representing her company Activist Music LLC. Alex’s music as well as her other, sometimes unusual pursuits, can be experienced throughout this slightly-overwhelming-but-at-least-it’s-well-organized website.
Anne McGinty
Anne McGinty is known throughout the world as the most prolific woman composer in the field of concert band literature, having written more than 225 pieces, with more than 50 of those commissioned by bands across the United States. Thousands of people have played her music and discovered the joy and beauty of playing music that is both educational (helping instrumentalists learn basic musical skills) and also musical, engaging their imagination and encouraging them to stay in the instrumental music program. In addition to concert band, she has written for solo flute with band, solo clarinet with band, brass band, string orchestra, solo flute, flute with piano accompaniment, and music for flute duet, trio, quartet and choir. All of her compositions and arrangements have been published. Her publishers include Queenwood Publications (now Queenwood/Kjos), C. L. Barnhouse Co., Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard Corporation, Kendor Music, Kjos Publications and Southern Music Company. After a successful career spanning 30+ years as both a composer and publisher of educational music, Anne is now writing chamber music for brass and woodwinds, all published by McGinty Music. An expert in writing for wind instruments, Anne is also composing for diverse instrumental combinations to showcase their varied timbral possibilities in modern, tonal music. She began her higher education at The Ohio State University, where Donald McGinnis was her mentor, band director and flute teacher. She left OSU to pursue a career in flute performance, and played principal flute with the Tucson (Arizona) Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Pops Orchestra, and in the TSO Woodwind Quintet, which toured Arizona under the auspices of a government grant. When she returned to college, she received her Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, and Master of Music from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she concentrated on flute performance, music theory and composition. She studied flute and chamber music with Bernard Goldberg and composition with Joseph Willcox Jenkins. Ms. McGinty is a life member of the National Flute Association and served on its Board of Directors. She taught flute at several colleges in the Mid-West, taught flute and chamber music to underprivileged children, and was leader of a Royal American Regiment Fife and Drum Corps. She performed professionally in orchestras, chamber groups and as a flute clinician for a major manufacturer. She also was the editor of a flute column for a music magazine and co-founder of the NFA Newsletter, now known as “The Flutists Quarterly.” Although no longer performing as a flutist, she remains well known as a flute choir specialist and was the first person to convince two major educational music publishers to publish a series for flute choir. As the flute editor at Hansen Publications in Miami Beach, Florida, she arranged and produced the first such flute choir series. She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and has received annual composition award since 1986. She received the Golden Rose Award from the Women Band Directors National Association and the Outstanding Service to Music Award from Tau Beta Sigma, a national honorary band sorority. Highlights of her career include being the first woman composer commissioned to write for the United States Army Band. That composition, entitled Hall Of Heroes and premiered in March, 2000, with the composer conducting, featured the U.S. Army Band & Chorus and honored the recipients of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, with words based on a poem by Audie Murphy. She was commissioned to write an original composition (To Keep Thine Honor Bright) for the Bicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point and another (Victorious) for the United States Continental Army (now TRADOC) Band. Another very special commission (‘Tis A Gift) was for victims of TWA Flight 800 and to help heal the community of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, with music. Music is the most important thing she has ever done or will ever do in her life – composing, conducting, performing and speaking at a wide variety of musical events. Her enthusiasm and passion for music is evident in everything she writes.
Carol Brittin Chambers
Carol Brittin Chambers, composer and arranger, is currently the composer and owner of Aspenwood Music and a highly sought-after conductor and clinician. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, where she is also on the music faculty at Texas Lutheran University, teaching composition and serving as Composer in Residence. Chambers is commissioned each year to compose and arrange works for concert band, marching band, orchestra, and chamber ensembles. Her concert works have been selected to the J.W. Pepper Editor’s Choice List and the Bandworld Top 100 and have been performed at state educator conferences across the country, the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, and other international events. She was named the winner of the 2019 WBDI (Women Band Directors International) Composition Competition and just recently served as the 2025 TBA Texas Bandmasters Association Featured Composer. She has arranged and orchestrated marching shows for multitudes of high school bands nationwide, as well as The Crossmen Drum Corps. Chambers travels coast-to-coast conducting music ensembles of all ability levels and ages, and she has now joined the Conn Selmer Educational Team as an Educational Clinician. Chambers has arranged and orchestrated show music for numerous high school marching bands across the country, as well as The Crossmen Drum Corps. High schools include CT Johnson HS, San Antonio, TX (2020 6A State Champion, 2019, 2016, 2011 BOA Grand Nationals Finalist, 2017 BOA San Antonio Super-Regional, Austin, & Midland Champion, 2014 BOA San Antonio Super-Regional & Houston Champion, multi-year State Finalist), Keller HS, TX (2023, 2015 BOA Grand Nationals Finalist, 2017 & multi-year BOA Regional and State Finalist), Broken Arrow Senior High School, OK (2006 BOA Grand Nationals Finals Champion), and Ronald Reagan High School, San Antonio, TX (2005 Bands of America Grand Nationals Semi-Finals Champion), to name a few. In addition to her own shows, she also orchestrates the shows of Aaron Guidry, at www.yataforluda.com. At Texas Lutheran University, Chambers has taught a variety of music education courses, including Band and Brass Methods, Orchestration, Music Technology, Ear Training and Sight Singing, and Trumpet lessons, to name a few. Before teaching at TLU, Chambers taught middle school and high school band for many years in the North East Independent School District, San Antonio, TX. She also taught private lessons in NEISD. Chambers received a Master of Music in Trumpet Performance from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Music Education from Texas Tech University. She studied under Vincent Cichowicz, Will Strieder, John Paynter, Arnold Jacobs, James Sudduth, and Pat Anthony. She and her husband Mark have three children: Catherine, Joshua, and Julia.
Erika Svanoe
Erika Svanoe is a conductor and composer for wind band, known for her lyrical melodies, nods to classic literature, musical deconstruction, humor, and pastiche. Her works have been performed by distinguished ensembles such as “The President's Own” United States Marine Band, the United States Army Band “Pershing‘s Own,” the US Navy Band, the US Air Force Band, and the National Concert Band of America. Her music has been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio, in Bandworld's Top 100, and the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series. She has been recognized with the National Band Association/Alfred Music Young Band Composition Award, and as a finalist for the American Bandmasters Association Sousa-Ostwald Award. As a conductor, Dr. Svanoe has been a guest faculty artist with the Manhattan School of Music Camerata Nova Wind Ensemble, interim conductor of the St. Olaf Band, and featured civilian guest conductor of the USAF Heritage of America Band. She has held collegiate appointments at Augsburg University, Bemidji State University, and the University of New Hampshire, and remains active as a guest conductor and clinician, appearing with high school, university, and All-State and festival ensembles across the United States. She is presently the conductor of the University of Wisconsin–Stout Symphonic Band. She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from The Ohio State University under Russel C. Mikkelson, where she served as conductor of the OSU Collegiate Winds, assistant conductor of the OSU Wind Symphony, and taught undergraduate conducting classes. Her DMA dissertation included a critical edition of Aaron Copland's El Salón México for wind ensemble. She holds a Master of Music in Wind Conducting from Oklahoma State University and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Her first album, The Music of Erika Svanoe, was recorded by Andrew Boysen, Jr. and the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony, and released by Mark Records in 2022. Her music is published through Alfred Music, G.Schirmer/AMP, J.W. Pepper, and self-published through Swan Maiden Press. She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). She is also the creator and publisher of Marrying Mr. Darcy, the Pride & Prejudice card game, and occasionally advocates and speaks on the topic of arts entrepreneurship, with appearances at the XOXO Festival and in a variety of gaming-related media. Originally from Whitewater, Wisconsin, she currently lives in Menomonie, WI with her husband, designer and graphic novelist Erik Evensen.
Jennifer Higdon
Jennifer Higdon was born on New Year’s Eve, 1962 (Brooklyn, NY). She didn’t start playing an instrument until she taught herself to play the flute at the age of 15 and began formal studies at 18 when she entered college. Despite this late start, the Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy winner has become a major figure in Classical music and is one of the few individuals in the U.S. who makes her living from commissions. Higdon averages 300 performances a year of her works, in many genres within classical music: from opera to chamber, symphonic to band, solo works to concerti. She has even written works in forms not tackled before: a bluegrass/classical hybrid concerto, a concerto for the entire low brass section of an orchestra (at the request of Maestro Ricardo Muti), and one that features 6 soloists (for Eighth Blackbird). After receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto, Higdon also won a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto...a singular feat which no other classical composer has ever managed: two of the biggest major awards for two different pieces in one year. Additionally, she was awarded one of the largest and most prestigious composition prizes in the world, The Nemmers Prize in Music from Northwestern University. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation Fellowship, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, an Independence Foundation Grant, and funding from the NEA. A winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition’s American Composers Invitational, her Secret & Glass Gardens was performed by the semi-finalists in 2005. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, sold out its premiere run in Santa Fe, as well as in North Carolina, and Philadelphia (becoming the third highest selling opera in Opera Philadelphia’s history). Cold Mountain won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award’s history. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally”, with the Times of London citing it as “…traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” The Chicago Sun Times recently cited her music as “both modern and timeless, complex and sophisticated, and immensely engaging in a way that both charms and galvanizes an audience craving something new and full of urgency, yet not distancing.” John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune called her writing, “beautiful, accessible, inventive, and impeccably crafted.” Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Atlanta Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own United States Marine Band. She has also written works for such renowned artists as baritone Thomas Hampson and mezzo Sasha Cooke; pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman; and violinists Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jennifer Koh, and Hilary Hahn. Her orchestral work, blue cathedral, is one of the most performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire and is widely considered the first work in the 21st century to have become part of the standard repertoire. Since its premiere in 2000, it has received over 850 performances. Higdon’s works have been recorded on more than 90 CDs. She has won Grammys for her Percussion Concerto, Viola Concerto and her Harp Concerto. Her work, All Things Majestic, written for the Grand Teton Music Festival, is part of that national park’s visitor center experience. The Library of Congress has added the recording of her Percussion Concerto to the National Recording Registry. She was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin).
Jodie Blackshaw
Jennifer Higdon was born on New Year’s Eve, 1962 (Brooklyn, NY). She didn’t start playing an instrument until she taught herself to play the flute at the age of 15 and began formal studies at 18 when she entered college. Despite this late start, the Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy winner has become a major figure in Classical music and is one of the few individuals in the U.S. who makes her living from commissions. Higdon averages 300 performances a year of her works, in many genres within classical music: from opera to chamber, symphonic to band, solo works to concerti. She has even written works in forms not tackled before: a bluegrass/classical hybrid concerto, a concerto for the entire low brass section of an orchestra (at the request of Maestro Ricardo Muti), and one that features 6 soloists (for Eighth Blackbird). After receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto, Higdon also won a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto...a singular feat which no other classical composer has ever managed: two of the biggest major awards for two different pieces in one year. Additionally, she was awarded one of the largest and most prestigious composition prizes in the world, The Nemmers Prize in Music from Northwestern University. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation Fellowship, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, an Independence Foundation Grant, and funding from the NEA. A winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition’s American Composers Invitational, her Secret & Glass Gardens was performed by the semi-finalists in 2005. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, sold out its premiere run in Santa Fe, as well as in North Carolina, and Philadelphia (becoming the third highest selling opera in Opera Philadelphia’s history). Cold Mountain won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award’s history. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having “the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally”, with the Times of London citing it as “…traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness.” The Chicago Sun Times recently cited her music as “both modern and timeless, complex and sophisticated, and immensely engaging in a way that both charms and galvanizes an audience craving something new and full of urgency, yet not distancing.” John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune called her writing, “beautiful, accessible, inventive, and impeccably crafted.” Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Atlanta Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own United States Marine Band. She has also written works for such renowned artists as baritone Thomas Hampson and mezzo Sasha Cooke; pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman; and violinists Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jennifer Koh, and Hilary Hahn. Her orchestral work, blue cathedral, is one of the most performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire and is widely considered the first work in the 21st century to have become part of the standard repertoire. Since its premiere in 2000, it has received over 850 performances. Higdon’s works have been recorded on more than 90 CDs. She has won Grammys for her Percussion Concerto, Viola Concerto and her Harp Concerto. Her work, All Things Majestic, written for the Grand Teton Music Festival, is part of that national park’s visitor center experience. The Library of Congress has added the recording of her Percussion Concerto to the National Recording Registry. She was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin).
Julie Giroux
Julie Ann Giroux was born December 12, 1961 in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Being in a travelling Air Force family, she was raised in Phoenix, Arizona and Monroe, Louisiana. She received her formal education from Louisiana State University where she majored in music performance. She has studied composition with notable composers such as: John Williams, Bill Conti, and Jerry Goldsmith, and worked alongside Greig McRitchie, Charlie Bernstein, and Danny Elfman, just to name a few. Julie is an accomplished performer on piano and horn, but her first love is composition. She began playing the piano at the age of three and had her first piece published at the age of nine. In 1985, she started composing, orchestrating, and conducting music for television and films. Just hours after her college graduation, she accepted a job working under the Academy Award winning composer Bill Conti in Los Angeles. Her first project was working on the music for the Emmy Award winning mini-series North and South. That was followed soon by work on the television series Dynasty, The Colbys, Hill Street Blues, Cagney and Lacey, as well as the films Karate Kid II, April Fool’s Day, Blaze, White Men Can’t Jump, and Broadcast News. Julie has also been privileged to collaborate with dozens of film composers, producers, and celebrities including Samuel Goldwyn, Martin Scorsese, Chevy Chase and Clint Eastwood. She has also arranged for Celine Dion, Paula Abdul, Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, Reba McIntyre, Little Richard, Billy Crystal, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Reba McIntyre, Paul Newman, Harry Connick Jr., and many, many others. She received her first Emmy nomination in 1988 for North and South Part II – Love and War, and over the next three years was nominated each year for her arranging and original compositions for the Academy Awards show. To date, Julie has well over 100 film, television, and video game credits and has been nominated for an Emmy several times. In 1992 she won her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction for the 64th Annual Academy Awards, ABC. She was the first woman and youngest person ever to win the award in that category. She has won the same Emmy award a total of three times. In 1997, Julie began to compose heavily for concert bands, wind ensembles, orchestras and military bands and currently has well over 200 titles. Her published works have been performed numerous times in Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and in over 140 countries. Julie is an extremely well-rounded composer, writing works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, wind ensembles, choirs, soloists, brass and woodwind quintets and many other serious and commercial formats. She has composed and published numerous works for professional wind ensembles, military bands, colleges, and public schools and has conducted her music worldwide. She is regularly scheduled as both a speaker and clinician of many national clinics including the American Band College and the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. In May of 2018, Julie was named to the J.W. Pepper 19 Groundbreaking Women Composers. This honor was only bestowed upon seven currently living composers. Julie is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the first woman composer inducted into the prestigious American Bandmasters Association (ABA), and an honorary member of Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma where she received the Distinguished Service to Music Medal in 2017. She also was awarded the Midwest Clinic Medal of Honor in 2021. In January of 2021, Julie was programmed by “The Presidents Own” United States Marine Band for the Presidential Inauguration. Her piece, Integrity Fanfare and March, was performed for the entrance of Vice-President Kamala Harris. This was the first time that a woman has ever been programmed for the presidential inaugural ceremony. She was programmed again for the 2025 presidential inauguration, this time her Medalist Fanfare. Symphony No. 7 “Titan” premiered earlier this year and her Symphony No. 6 “The Blue Marble” is a 30 minute 4-8k short film which can be viewed on 3 screens and IMAX Dolby. Giroux not only wrote the music but produced and created the film herself. On June 21, 2025, Julie Giroux was inducted into the prestigious Women Songwriters Hall of Fame. Julie continues to compose, orchestrate, and arrange for television, movies, video games, wind bands, and orchestras.
Libby Larson
Libby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2024), she has composed over 500 works including orchestra, opera, vocal and chamber music, symphonic winds, and band. Her work is widely recorded. An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum. Grammy Award winner and former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. From 2014-2020 as Artistic Director of the John Duffy Institute for New Opera, she guided a faculty of practicing professional artists in nurturing and production of new opera by American Composers. Larsen’s 2017 biography, Libby Larsen: Composing and American Life, Denise Von Glahn, author, is available from the University Illinois Press. “Music exists in an infinity of sound. I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself. It is the composer’s task to order and make sense of sound, in time and space, to communicate something about being alive through music.” – Libby Larsen
Michelle Fernandez
Michele Fernández is a published composer, active guest clinician, adjudicator, and performer. Her Jazz and Symphonic compositions have been premiered at Midwest, CBDNA, IAJE, MEA’s and All-State/Regional venues as well as professional venues. Her works are currently (and/or scheduled to be) published through Hal Leonard, Excelcia/Kendor, Doug Beach, JW Pepper, Murphy Music Press, EJazz Lines/Walrus, Jazz Zone (as well here: *Michele Fernández Music*). She is a member of Phi Beta Mu (Omega Chapter) and an active member of FBA, JEN, ISJAC, MBDNA. She frequently serves as a guest clinician/conductor for All-State groups and Regional Honors Jazz/Symphonic groups. She has appeared as a Midwest Clinic lecturer (‘07/’16), JEN ’22, various State MEA’s. She is a Conn-Selmer and Hall-Leonard sponsored clinician, as well as a freelance guest clinician/conductor for universities and districts across the country. Michele recently retired from teaching in Miami after 30 years, where (among other teaching positions) her Miami Senior HS ensembles earned top honors/gained international acclaim. Her groups have been selected for Midwest Clinic (Chicago ’93 & ’98), IAJE (Boston ’94 & NYC ’97), Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland ’96), FMEA (Tampa ’94 & ’97) and various national publications. She and her students were the subject of a documentary on “CBS Sunday Morning”, cover story in Band Director’s Guide and featured as an outstanding educator in Downbeat Magazine. Before focusing on writing/clinics, she served as an active oboist in the Miami area, as well as a rhythm section player in a busy Afro-Latin/Jazz group.
Shelly Henson
Shelley Hanson is a composer, clarinetist, conductor and producer whose music has been performed on all continents except Antarctica. Principal Clarinetist of the Minneapolis Pops Orchestra, she has performed as a soloist with many ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, and the U.S. Air Force Band, among others. Her klezmer band, Klezmer & All That Jazz, recorded traditional music as well as her own originals for the Audie Award-winning NPR production of the classic Yiddish play The Dybbuk. Currently Director of the Wind Ensemble at Macalester College, she has conducted wind ensembles and orchestras as a faculty member of various colleges and universities, and is a frequent clinician and guest conductor for high school, university, and community groups. A graduate of Duke University, she received the M.M., Woodwind Specialist, and the Ph.D. in performance, music literature, and music theory from Michigan State University.
Valerie Coleman
Valerie Coleman is regarded by many as an iconic artist who continues to pave her own unique path as a composer, GRAMMY®-nominated flutist, and entrepreneur. Highlighted as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by The Washington Post, she was named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, an honor bestowed to an individual who has made a significant contribution to classical music as a performer, composer or educator. Her works have garnered awards such as the MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Umoja, Anthem for Unity was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of the “Top 101 Great American Ensemble Works” and is now a staple of woodwind literature. Coleman commenced her 2021/22 season with the world premiere of her latest work, Fanfare for Uncommon Times, at the Caramoor Festival with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In October 2021, Carnegie Hall presents her work Seven O'Clock Shout, commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, in their Opening Night Gala concert featuring The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This follows on the success of the world premiere of Coleman’s orchestral arrangement of her work Umoja, commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra and performed in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall in 2019, marking the first time the orchestra performed a classical work by a living female African-American composer. In February 2022, The Philadelphia Orchestra and soprano Angel Blue, led by Nézet-Séguin, will give the world premiere of a new song cycle written by Coleman, commissioned by the orchestra for performances in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall. Coleman has been named to the Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater New Works dual commissioning program in 2021/22. This season sees performances of her works by orchestras around the United States including the Minnesota Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Yale Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Symphony and The Louisville Orchestra. Recent commissions include works for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Library of Congress, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Composers Orchestra, The National Flute Association, University of Chicago and University of Michigan. Previous performances of her works have been with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony and significant chamber ensembles and collegiate bands across the country. Former flutist of the Imani Winds, Coleman is the creator and founder of this acclaimed ensemble whose 24-year legacy is documented and featured in a dedicated exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Along with composer-harpist Hannah Lash, and composer-violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, she co-founded and currently performs as flutist of the performer-composer trio Umama Womama. As a performer, Coleman has appeared at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center and with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Banff, Spoleto USA and Bravo! Vail. As a guest flutist, she has participated in the Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair, New Jersey Flute Fair, South Carolina Flute Society Festival, Colorado Flute Fair, Mid-South Flute Fair and the National Women’s Music Festival. In 2021/22, Valerie will appear at a host of festival and collegiate multi-disciplinary residencies, including Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Chamber Music Northwest, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, University of Michigan and Coastal Carolina University. Coleman will be the featured guest artist at the Long Island Flute Club, Raleigh Area Flute Association, Greater Portland Flute Society, Seattle Flute Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison Flute Day, Bethune-Cookman University Flute Day and the Florida Flute Society Festival. As a chamber musician, Coleman has performed throughout North America and Europe alongside Dover Quartet, Orion String Quartet, Miami String Quartet, Harlem String Quartet, Quarteto Latinoamericano, Yo-Yo Ma, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Anne-Marie McDermott, Wu Han, David Shifrin, Gil Kalish, members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and jazz legends Paquito D’Rivera, Stefon Harris, Jason Moran and René Marie. A laureate of Concert Artists Guild, she is a former member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center CMS Two. Coleman’s work as a recording artist includes an extensive discography. With Imani Winds, she has appeared on Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Naxos, Cedille Records and eOne, and as a guest flutist on albums with Wayne Shorter Quartet, Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance, Chick Corea, Brubeck Brothers, Edward Simon, Bruce Adolphe, and Mohammed Fairouz. Her compositions and performances are regularly broadcast on NPR, WNYC, WQXR, Minnesota Public Radio, Sirius XM, Radio France, Australian Broadcast Company and Radio New Zealand. Committed to arts education, entrepreneurship and chamber music advocacy, Coleman created the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival in 2011, a summer mentorship program in New York City welcoming young leaders from over 100 international institutions. She has held flute and chamber music masterclasses at institutions in 49 states and over five continents, including The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, New England Conservatory, Oberlin College, Eastman School of Music, Yale University, Carnegie Mellon, Interlochen Arts Academy, Beijing Conservatory, Brazil’s Campo do Jordão Festival and Australia’s Musica Viva. As a part of Imani Winds, she has been artist-in-residence at Mannes College of Music, Banff Chamber Music Intensive and Visiting Faculty at the University of Chicago. In February 2024, Coleman was appointed to the Composition Department faculty at The Juilliard School. She is the Director of the Woodwind Quintet Workshop at Boston University Tanglewood Institute and holds faculty positions with the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music Flute and Composition Department and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Coleman previously served on the faculty at The Frost School of Music at the University of Miami as Assistant Professor of Performance, Chamber Music and Entrepreneurship. She adjudicates for the National Flute Association’s High School Artist Competition, Concert Artist Guild, APAP’s Young Performing Concert Artists Program, ASCAP’s Morton Gould Award, MapFund Award and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has served on the Board of Advisors for Composers Now, Sphinx LEAD, APAP’s Classical Connections Committee and the National Flute Association’s New Music Advisory Committee and Board Nomination Committee. Coleman’s compositions are published by Theodore Presser and her own company, Coleman Page Publishing. She studied composition with Martin Amlin and Randy Wolfe and flute with Julius Baker, Judith Mendenhall, Doriot Dwyer, Leone Buyse and Alan Weiss. She and her family are based in New York City.
Virginia Allen
Virginia Allen is a conductor, music educator, arranger, and consultant located in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a retired faculty member of The Juilliard School, where she served as the Associate Dean for Administration, the Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies, and the founding Artistic Director of the Conducting Workshop for Music Educators. At Juilliard, she taught conducting and studio pedagogy, co-founded and conducted The Juilliard Trombone Choir, and served as Executive Director of the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies. Additionally, Virginia taught conducting at The Curtis Institute of Music and University of the Arts in Philadelphia and at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. She continues to teach conducting lessons in her studio and online and is Artistic Director Emerita of the Philadelphia Wind Symphony. She also served as Artistic Director of the Sun Valley Summer Music Workshops in Idaho, where she founded and conducted the Sun Valley Youth Orchestra. Prior to teaching on the college level, Virginia enjoyed a 20-year career as a conductor and administrator in the U.S. Army Bands Program and achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. As a pioneer for women in military bands she was the first woman to command and conduct an active duty military band that integrated women and men when she was appointed Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command Band in Atlanta. As Associate Conductor of The West Point Band, she was the first woman conductor of that historic organization, as well as the Cadet Glee Club and Cadet Band. She also performed on stages from the Hollywood Bowl to Europe as the first woman conductor of The U.S. Army Field Band and The Soldiers' Chorus, the Army's premier touring ensembles from Washington, D.C. Her military career included an assignment as the Department of the Army Staff Bands Officer in Washington, D.C., where she managed over 100 Army bands and band activities worldwide. As an arranger, Virginia’s music has been premiered, performed, and recorded by members of the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Washington Opera Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, The Juilliard Trombone Choir, The U.S. Army Band, The U.S. Army Field Band, and The West Point Band. Her music is published by Carl Fischer, Theodore Presser, Keyboard Percussion Publications, Alessi Publications, Southern Music, Ludwig Music, and TRN Music. A member of ASCAP, she is a former board member for the Conductors Guild and the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE). Virginia studied French horn and conducting and earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree and a Master of Music degree in Performance from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and a Diploma in Wind Conducting from the University of Calgary. She earned a Doctor of Education in the College Teaching of Music at Columbia University, where her dissertation topic was Developing Expertise in Professional American Orchestra Conductors.
Yukiko Nishimura
Virginia Allen is a conductor, music educator, arranger, and consultant located in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a retired faculty member of The Juilliard School, where she served as the Associate Dean for Administration, the Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies, and the founding Artistic Director of the Conducting Workshop for Music Educators. At Juilliard, she taught conducting and studio pedagogy, co-founded and conducted The Juilliard Trombone Choir, and served as Executive Director of the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies. Additionally, Virginia taught conducting at The Curtis Institute of Music and University of the Arts in Philadelphia and at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. She continues to teach conducting lessons in her studio and online and is Artistic Director Emerita of the Philadelphia Wind Symphony. She also served as Artistic Director of the Sun Valley Summer Music Workshops in Idaho, where she founded and conducted the Sun Valley Youth Orchestra. Prior to teaching on the college level, Virginia enjoyed a 20-year career as a conductor and administrator in the U.S. Army Bands Program and achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. As a pioneer for women in military bands she was the first woman to command and conduct an active duty military band that integrated women and men when she was appointed Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command Band in Atlanta. As Associate Conductor of The West Point Band, she was the first woman conductor of that historic organization, as well as the Cadet Glee Club and Cadet Band. She also performed on stages from the Hollywood Bowl to Europe as the first woman conductor of The U.S. Army Field Band and The Soldiers' Chorus, the Army's premier touring ensembles from Washington, D.C. Her military career included an assignment as the Department of the Army Staff Bands Officer in Washington, D.C., where she managed over 100 Army bands and band activities worldwide. As an arranger, Virginia’s music has been premiered, performed, and recorded by members of the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Washington Opera Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, The Juilliard Trombone Choir, The U.S. Army Band, The U.S. Army Field Band, and The West Point Band. Her music is published by Carl Fischer, Theodore Presser, Keyboard Percussion Publications, Alessi Publications, Southern Music, Ludwig Music, and TRN Music. A member of ASCAP, she is a former board member for the Conductors Guild and the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE). Virginia studied French horn and conducting and earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree and a Master of Music degree in Performance from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and a Diploma in Wind Conducting from the University of Calgary. She earned a Doctor of Education in the College Teaching of Music at Columbia University, where her dissertation topic was Developing Expertise in Professional American Orchestra Conductors.
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